Tale of Two Cities

Wednesday was the day of museums!  But first, Alan gave us some history about South Africa. I usually think history is a bore but Alan said something that really spiked my interest in the subject. “I love history because it makes sense of my present.” This statement explains perfectly the current state and the history of Africa. We learned a lot about the history of the Dutch and the Khoisan in South Africa. As ignorant as this may sound, I had never realized that slavery occurred in Africa. I’ve always been so aware of the American history of slavery that it never occurred to me that this happened all over the world. The fascinating thing about slavery in South Africa is that the slaves were brought over from Indonesia because it was thought that the Khoisan were too incompetent to do the duties of a slave. One question that popped into my head was why would the Dutch feel as though they could take the land of the Khoisan’s and then turn them into their property? Why was this so popular all throughout history? What was it about most settlers (or possibly invaders?) that made them segregate and find differences rather than learn from and cooperate with the people that were originally on that land? It made me question whether this was an innate behavior for human beings. Do people truly assume the worst in others before giving everyone the benefit of the doubt? I wonder how we can break this cycle of feelings of superiority which seems to reoccur, even in our current society.

Quick lesson: The Khoisan people were Africans in the southern tip of South Africa and had lighter colored skin, whereas the Nguni people were from the north and had a much darker colored skin. Alan explained to us that this piece of history has become a contemporary issue for the people of South Africa. Many people have identity issues due to characteristics such as skin color and language (nine different languages are spoken in South Africa) and these identity issues change from generation to generation. This was interesting to me because these ancestors were from the same country but there was still a lot of diversity among them. This diversity can be seen now walking down the streets of Cape Town. There are a lot of coloured (mixed) and black people and some white people. The variety of race, languages, religion (or lack thereof), and politics is absolutely fascinating and I can’t even begin to fathom the time that it will take to create a sense of unity for the citizens of South Africa. Nelson Mandela was on heck of a good leader and a very clever man for the amount of unity he had created during the aftermath of apartheid. Some of us have experienced a lot of what Americans would consider rude behavior but I just wonder if it’s because of the color of our skin, which they may associate with privilege, or if this is a custom of theirs. Possibly, manners and customer service aren’t as valued here as they are in the US.

The diversity that I explained before may not be too shocking to Americans because we too experience a lot of diversity. But, I don’t think we experience the poverty that I have been seeing and “The Tale of Two Cities,” as Alan would call it. It’s astonishing to me to drive around Cape Town because there will be million dollar houses on one side of the mountain, street, or city (you name it) and then on the opposite side there will be townships of shacks. Shacks that are, literally, made out of tin roofs and pieces of wood. Some of these “houses” don’t even have doors and luckily they are in Africa because these families, sadly, wouldn’t survive a Minnesota winter. The shacks are piled one on top of the other and it is just the saddest looking community ever. I can’t wrap my head around how the people in the million dollar communities can look across the street at the kids living in tin roofs with wood panels without feeling constant guilt and a need to help. Or…how the people in the shacks can bare to look across the street at the million dollar houses without feeling anything but rage and torment. I look at the nice houses in the community and feel complete anger. This is something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand and unfortunately I don’t think I’m able to scream at these people that flaunt their money with such a lack of compassion for those that they neighbor. It’s probably one of the most frustrating things for me to witness thus far and I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to live in that situation next week.

Now on to the activities of the day! We went to the Castle of Good Hope first and saw a reenactment which they lit a cannon! The Castle of Good Hope was used for military purposes and was built by the Dutch. This was a very interesting museum and we were even able to go into the torture room and black hole which was a dark room that people were sent to after the torture room. We also saw a table that seated over 100 people! One thing I admired while walking through the museum was all of the paintings. I began to take interest in the perspectives of the people painting the pictures because I think that could be a very biased representation of history at that point in time. Next, we went to the Slavery Museum. WOW! I can’t even begin to express the sorrow and guilt I feel for everything that each slave went through. The dignity and identity that was stripped of these people is completely distressing. Slaves were sometimes named after the months that they arrived, animals, food, and even where they arrived from. How disappointed and worthless would you feel if someone took away your name and named you “Minnesota” or “Sweet Potato” (Sweet Potato was a real name)? I’ve always know how badly slaves were treated and how degrading the act of slavery was and it’s always made me furious but this museum brought a sense of peace to me because it was dedicated to the abolition of slavery and giving recognition to those who suffered from this injustice. This museum also included a huge gallery of information about Nelson Mandela which was very informative but also very overwhelming! Our final destination includes the District 6 Museum. Another history lesson: District 6 was an area of Cape Town in which people were kicked out of their homes and literally forced to wonder the streets, homeless, with all of their belongings. The reason for the people being kicked out of their homes was because that area of the city had been declared an area for whites only and this just happened in 1966. This museum displayed pictures of District 6 before and after the removal of families and was also a place for many families to psychologically reclaim their homes in District 6. Sadly, much of District 6 was never developed and still remains bare today, which is very disappointing and upsetting to me. I don’t understand why hundreds or thousands of families were removed from their homes just so the land could remain unused.

I know that’s a lot to take in and lot of information thrown out at once. I hope it makes sense because honestly I’m still trying to make sense of it all. It’s just absolutely fascinating that all of this history is so recent and the process of the abolition of slavery and discrimination is still a baby in comparison to America’s history. Tomorrow’s blog will be a much more light hearted, I think, and I hope everyone enjoyed their brief South Africa history lesson!

Thanks for blogging,

Brittany