Another side of Cape Town

I regret my blog silence of late. Our internet at work is not working properly due to recent heavy rains, and Telcom keeps "fixing" the problem only for it to start up again next time it rains.

One of the most jarring things about being here is the contrast between the townships and Cape Town proper. In fifteen minutes you can drive from the Third World to the First World, and not just in terms of living conditions. There are two parallel economies here, and they overlap relatively infrequently. This is true, I've been told, of every "Third World" country, as the rich elite always have living standards on par with Western standards, and you can find plenty of people in the US (places in the Bronx, Anacostia (DC), Appalacia) where people live in Third World conditions. So to some extent it is an artificial distinction. But you rarely see the two side-by-side in the States.

What is unique about South Africa is that Apartheid drew these boundaries on racial lines, with blacks forcibly moved away from the developed city centers and into townships and "Bantustans", so-called homelands where the Apartheid government moved undesirables and black South Africans in general. These were given nominal independence, not out of any democratic motivation, but as a means of washing the government's hands of any responsibility for the well being of people confined to overcrowded and agriculturally unproductive land. To this day almost all of the farmland in the country is owned by whites. Despite high unemployment and squalid living conditions, people pour into the Cape Flats townships from the Eastern Cape (still often referred to by the Bantustan name Transkei) to find work, because things are actually worse in the former "homelands". During Apartheid (which officially started in the late 1940s, although the practices had a long history) even diverse areas in the major cities were removed of non-whites, in government policy designed to minimize contact between races. One of the greatest problems today is that many South Africans have no contact with people outside their racial group. 56%, I'm told, have no such substantive contact. I'll return to this below.

In theory, black South Africans should have more opportunities now that Apartheid is ended and the government is run by the majority. But economic injustice has not gone away with the political injustice, and many people in the townships say living conditions have gotten worse since 1994. People are getting impatient for the government to make some progress. To be fair, it is a daunting task ahead. Apartheid explicitly excluded blacks from getting the sort of education that would make them employable outside of menial jobs, and intentionally kept black teachers poorly trained so that students would not have the opportunity to rise up. Many of the teachers today are still products of Apartheid education.

If you have been following the news the past five weeks or so, there is a massive strike of public servants (including teachers and nurses), and the government is handling things poorly, threating to lay off striking workers and going in for other hardnosed tactics. The strikers are not backing down from the 10% cost of living and salary increase they want. I am not well enough informed to comment on which side is right (or at least closer to right), and I have heard people take both sides in discussions at work. Overall, this strike is a symptom of an educational system that is a shambles and has a terribly long way to go before it will give people a chance to gain skills they need to break into the First World economy.

Sound familiar? One thing that is particularly striking to me is how much clearer debates over poverty in the States become after being here. African Americans face many of the same problems as black South Africans, and there is huge debate in the US over the causes of disproportionally high unemployment, poverty, imprisonment, etc. among blacks and other minorities. However, in a country where the "minority" is 79% of the population the reality of the intentional and systematic racializing of poverty is undeniable. Just as it is ridiculous to think that the legacy of Apartheid in disempowering the human capital of one group could be erased in thirteen years, isn't it naive to think that a legacy of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, etc, etc, in our own country can be corrected by Civil Rights legislation alone? Everyone over fifteen or so has some memory of Apartheid, and everyone my parents' age remembers the Civil Rights movement. It hasn't been such a long time. I will post more about this as I reflect on it. I still have eight weeks left in South Africa, and lots more time to form impressions and learn the about the different facts and issues.

Back to where I started my post, one of the greatest challenges to reconciliation is that the economy and infrastructure of the country have been quite intentionally designed, and forcibly transformed, to keep people from different racial groups apart. As is true in the States, ignorance is one of the greatest sources and supports of racism.

There is a bar I frequent in Sea Point, a posh neighborhood on the Atlantic Coast which makes a mean mojito (pictures here of the sunset and buildings are all from Sea Point -- contrast with pictures from some of the informal settlements). I have twice sat next to an older Afrikaans man who is very curious about my experiences and impressions in South Africa. He is quite stunned that I would set foot in the townships, where white South Africans are generally afraid to go. Things the man said made it clear to me that he is none-too-pleased with how the country has changed since 1994. Rather than getting into an argument, I just tried to understand how he thinks and to speak very positively of the kind, generous, and good-hearted people I have met in Guguletu. There is no excuse for racism, no human reason or justificationfor it. But it was obvious that this man's worldview, which was no doubt instilled from a very young age, is greatly reinforced by his lack of any substantive contacts or relationships (perhaps ever) with black South Africans.

Rev. Xapile has often said that one of the most important tasks facing the country today is creating environments and opportunities for different races to interact with one another. As long as they remain separate, they will remain ignorant, and forgetful of the other's humanity. As he often says, we know ourselves with and through "the other", our full humanity and cultural uniqueness. This notion is similar to the concept of ubuntu (which really has no good English translation), which empasizes the reality that "I am because you are", we are individuals, but we are connected to one another and cannot live on our own. The greatest human dignity of the individual is found in recognizing her connectedness to others, not just in creating a sphere of individual rights that demarcate her autonomy from everyone around. It has been said that African culture is different from Western culture in that the African model of the human community is a net, with each individual strand held and holding together every other connected strand; versus a bunch of atoms floating disconnectedly and capable of being scrambled up and rearranged without impacting the others or the composition of the whole. Like I said, these ideas are just forming, and what I write down in this internet cafe is off the top of my head. This is what I'm thinking now, and I will appreciate any comments or feedback.