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Published: June 12th 2010
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24 hours prior I had been sitting at home in the US where civil rights for the African-American population had been put into place some 40 years ago. Although racism is still alive and well in the US, there seems to be a stronger sense of equality presently compared to what I have seen here in South Africa. I'll talk more about that later.
I began my day by waking up at around 3AM, still adjusting to the 8 hour time difference. As I awoke I began to hear strange sounds that I had never heard. A rooster? Isn't that thing supposed to start making noise at sunrise? Well it was still pitch black and the rooster among many other animals were busy at work keeping me awake. I tried falling asleep but there was no point. I decided to get up and get showered for my all day visit to Soweto and the Apartheid museum. I knew the trip would be powerful and moving but what I didn't know was that it would bring me to the verge of tears.
Around 7AM a white man in a VW bus rolled up and I thought to myself that he
Identity Cards
Each person was classified into classes of black, white, or coloured. must be here for another tour. I mean how could a white guy possibly give a tour of Soweto and the Apartheid museum. Low and behold, Nico the white guide, turned out to be our tour guide for the day. Great I thought, I'm gonna get shot riding around with this guy. Nico was a friendly guy who had been born and raised Pretoria and had actually attended school at Northwestern in Chicago. What happened in between getting his biochemistry degree and becoming a tour guide in Joburg, I'm not sure.
Anyways, our first stop was the Apartheid museum where we were each given an identity card based on the color of our skin. As an Indian I had to enter through the black entrance whereby we came into the hallway which had blown up pictures of ID cards given out to everyone who lived in SA. Some of the physical charecteristics they used to identify you as either black, coloured, or Indian was the size of your lips, width of your nose, and arguably the stupidest one was to stick a pencil in your hair. If the pencil stayed put, then you were considered black. Your pay, living
The Bible
That's one way to look at it conditions, and treatment by others would ultimately depend upon which category you fell into, with blacks being treated the worst.
The Afrikaaners believed that the land of SA was given to them by God and that the black people who had originally lived here were to be used as seen fit. How they convinced themselves of this, I'm not quite sure. We then sat and watched a movie about what had happened during the revolutionary period in 1990. This had to be one of the most gruesome things I had ever seen. It was the Afrikaaners litterally shooting peaceful black protestors and burning townships where most of the blacks lived. What really struck me, and made me sad, was that the black police officers were just as brutal as the whites to there own people. Its hard to put into words what I felt, but I had a sick feeling that these black officers hated themselves. They believed they were cursed with their dark skin and wooly hair and therfore tried to destroy it.
What followed this revolutionary period was much violence while things were sorted out as to how control should be handed over to the blacks.
Soweto
Vivid colors It wasn't until approximately 1994 that Nelson Mandela actually came to become President. It's hard to imagine that only 15 years ago, there had been widespread discrimination and segregation.
From here we went to eat lunch at the Oppenheimer park where I was handed a nice meat pie. I looked at Nico and said "I don't eat meat." And Nico replied "well we've got bananas and chocolate". Well after 4 bananas, some guava juice, and some great chocolate, we were on our way to Soweto.
Soweto had been established by the Afrikaaners as a place where blacks should reside. It was created in order to separate the "pure whites from the hedonistic blacks". Still today, Soweto is a poor township entirely made of blacks. As we drove through, I began to appreciate the stark difference between this place and that of the modern suburbs of Joburg. It felt like a shanty town in some parts, and I felt like I was in some third world country.
We visited a famous church, of whose name I can't remember, and I was shocked to see a black Virgin Mary on the outside of the church. But this being Soweto
Initial sparks
The initial sparks that ignited a fight for freedom and all I was quite shocked to still see a picture and statue of a white Jesus. I'm in no place to judge what type of god a man should pray to, but it seems a bit strange that Jesus was not portrayed as being black here in the middle of Soweto where all the parishioners(sp) were black.
We continued on to the true Soweto market where locals would come and buy their meat, dairy, vegetables, and have a drink with friends. Some of the sights were quite overwhelming with cow and pig intestines strewn over a table and flies hovering all over the meat. The sight made me gag, and it takes a lot to make me gag. We finished off the day by having some local brew. Joburg Brew was locally made and came in milk cartons. Yeah milk cartons. The stuff tasted like piss but it definitely got you buzzed. The locals were laughing as we each chugged some of the stuff and then made funny faces. All in all the day turned out to be quite amazing and I hope to have more time to do some more exploring. Tommorow we set out to Kruger
Nelson Mandela
This was a painting we saw in his old home in Soweto which should be amazing.
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