To be sobered by the human condition

One thing that I wanted to do in South Africa was visit the Apartheid museum.  Coming here, I read a book on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that occurred in the aftermath of the atrocities of Apartheid -- a commission that would give a voice to the victims.  It gave me a good primer and I picked up things here and there from a magazine article on South Africa or a movie like Invictus, but I really didn't know a whole lot about Apartheid or what happened.  I hate that feeling of ignorance.

Starting off they send you through one gate if you are a white and another if you are a non-white to view ID cards of the race that isn't you.  Being white, I saw cards of blacks, Indians, and coloureds ("coloured" was a term used for mixed race people).  However, you soon realize that this was a whole lot more than a black and white issue.  It's funny, we like to make things black and white because it's simpler, but life isn't simple.  This was an issue of black, white, Afrikaner, Indian (Gandi lived in SA and there is a very large Indian population), Chinese, Zulu, and San (the bushmen and first settlers of the area) to name a few.  One of the plaques captures this perfectly showing how 1,000 people managed to change race in a year.

The museum covers around 100 years from roughly 1900 to 1994, but my head was spinning trying to grasp what happened and how it happened.  You learn that the English had something to do with it and that the Anglo-Boer wars had something to do with it.  You learn that the discovery of the largest gold deposit in the World (underneath modern day Johannesburg) had a lot to do with it.  Poor whites and poor blacks moved there and mingled together in slums and worked mines together in miserable conditions.  The Afrikaner (whites of Dutch origin who came in the 1600s) would nationalize after wars with the English and over trying to improve conditions for the poor whites.  Segregation would develop and then a critical election of 1948 would see the National Party come to power and pass the first of many Apartheid laws that would severely restrict what non-whites could and could not do.

Opposition would form with groups such as the South African Communist Party (became largely black), African National Congress (ANC), and the more violent Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).  Nelson Mandela would become a leader in the ANC and is one of the individuals who helped move the ANC from a mostly peaceful opposition to a more forceful opposition.  These efforts would land him and several other leaders in prison in 1962.  This crackdown by the Government would scatter the opposition until a student (teenagers) march in 1976 that resulted in the deaths of several kids would help mobilize the general black population and revitalize the ANC.  This event is memorialized by the Hector Pieterson memorial in the poor and extremely large townships of SOWETO.  SOWETO is a very significant place here and is where Mandela and Tutu both lived when in Joburg.

The next 14 years would see horrific violence by whites against blacks and blacks against whites and even blacks against blacks.  The Truth Commission revisited all these atrocities by people from all sides.  A change of leadership in the National Party in 1989 and mounting internal and external pressure would lead to the release of the political prisoners in 1990 and free elections for all in 1994.  These four years were hardly peaceful as the Zulu (large black tribe in Southeastern SA in the province that Durban is in) dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and ANC would fight violent turf wars with the IFP at times being supported by the white government and police force.  The government began negotiations of the election process with the IFP only to end up shifting towards the ANC.  Nelson Mandela would emerge from prison mellowed by his years of interacting with the white guards and would champion a nation of forgiveness and inclusion (He had not always been this way).  If it had not been for him, South Africa could have easily become another Zimbabwe.

So many thoughts raced through my head.  How do people do this to other people?  How does a group of people become collectively brainwashed? How do we justify it? How do we look the other way? How do our Churches justify it?  It felt so incredibly complex that I felt like an ignorant American who thought he kinda of knew what was going on, but didn't have a clue.  I thought about how I was 11 when the elections happened and I didn't know about a thing about them.  I vowed that I would someday remove the veil of ignorance from my children.  Not knowing is never an excuse.

I've noticed something else since I've been here; I've noticed hope.  It's a small sample size so it may not be worth much.  I see whites who talk about the horrors of racism.  I see blacks who support many of the non-black World Cup teams (even the Dutch!) because they like the brand of soccer they play.  I have seen conversations made up of English, Zulu, and Afrikaans.   I see a multitude of cultures that embrace Bafana Bafana (The South African Soccer team).  There are many problems here to be sure and concerns about a corrupt Government.  Things could certainly get worse, but I have this incredible sense of potential for this place.  There is such a warmth and a joy in the people and the spirit of Mandela looms large.  What is the power of a leader?  A leader can brainwash a people or bring them back from the brink.  Let us pray that the right kind of leaders can take charge of this place.

"So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.  Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.  The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene." Isaiah 59: 14-16