SA History Lesson

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Learning about SA’s history has been one of the most stimulating and rewarding parts of my experience here so far. To be in a country which so recently achieved its freedom (from a century of apartheid rule and previous centuries of colonialism) helps me to appreciate what the Declaration of Independence meant to colonists in 1776. What follows is a run through of what I’ve heard.

For one thing, if the topic comes up in conversation, the South African will ask, “Do you know about 1994 when everything changed here?” I haven’t yet discussed with anyone the personal hardships or losses they experienced in the years before that.... There’s enough in the words “everything changed here” to know that it was BIG.

1) How did the PC cover this topic? One morning long session covered SA’s history, going back thousands of years. An Afrikaans man in his session on conditions in SA mentioned that his political positions in the 1990’s divided his family. PC training staff (those who may have been in their teens or older in the 1900’s) talked about Pass Book laws and what it was like when a gov’t official could change the race of a person from Black to Coloured as he saw fit...which meant that families previously categorized as Black were forced apart when one family member didn’t look as Black as the others. PC staff shared their reactions during debriefings after our museum visits. We went to Joburg (Johannesburg) to see the Apartheid Museum and the Constitutional Court which was built on the jail-site that held Mahatma Gandhi in the early 20^th century, Nelson Mandela for a time, and many others. The Constitutional Court has the 20 statements of the SA Bill of Rights carved on its very tall wooden doors. South Africans are very proud of their new constitution and Bill of Rights. PC invited young South Africans of diverse backgrounds (urban, rural, educated woman, gay, etc.) to make up a panel discussion; and the guarantee of equal rights for all, found in their Bill of Rights, came up often. In Pretoria we toured the Voortrekker Museum; imposing 1940’s architecture commemorating the trek of the Boers inland to get out from under British rule in the 1800’s. This visit brought the most passionate reactions. It is something like honoring the determination of people who went West on the Oregon Trail, and at the same time learning about Chief Joseph who led the Nez Perce almost to safety in Canada before being captured and sent to a reservation. I see some similarities between the Africans’ and Native Americans’ cultures and how they fit, or don’t, into the modern lifestyle of their countries. The big difference is that Africans are 80%!o(MISSING)f the SA population, and Native Americans are a very small population in our country. Which brings me to:

2) a quote from one of our sessions above: “Until lions learn to tell their stories, history will tell the story of the hunter.”

3) There are 11 official languages here; established as part of the effort to promote unity amongst all this diversity. Zulu is spoken by 24%!o(MISSING)f the people, with Afrikaans, Sepedi, English, and others not far behind. The language I study, isiNdebele, is similar to Zulu, so I can recognize some words there. But the village I live in is 80%!S(MISSING)epedi and 20%!i(MISSING)siNdebele so I miss parts of the staff room discussions. My co-workers all speak English fairly well, and sometimes speak Sepedi for ease of conversation, but they don’t mind repeating their conversations in English for me. The national anthem has 4 stanzas, 4 melodies, and 5 languages. Somehow it seems to work. The Afrikaans and English stanzas at the end are my least favorite melodies, to tell the truth. We were also told that the US is the only (or one of the only) countries which has no official language. The reason I heard, is that in the 1800’s we were so proud of welcoming people from everywhere, the Statue of Liberty, etc., that we didn’t want to single out English over the others.

4) In July, I attended a ceremony for 6 teenage boys who had spent 2 months in the mountains for initiation. Most of the photos of people in traditional wear are from this 2-day event. Talking to the children gathered around me was a good way to pass the time....some of them could speak English quite well. I decided to try drawing some of them, which I wasn’t very good at...it’s been a long time since I’ve drawn anything. Anyway, I did draw a passable papaya tree. Then a girl asked me to draw Nelson Mandela. I realized that for them, Mandela (or Mandiba, as they call him) should be easy to draw, just as the faces of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are easily recognizable to most school-age children in the U.S. This July on Mandela’s 94^th birthday, our LCF (language teachers) led the birthday song which was sung throughout the country. His stature is ensured for being a prominent voice in the fight for freedom, for being imprisoned, and for leading the country out of apartheid into a new government for all, as its first President. I wonder what it would have been like to have lived at those times in our country and I’m jealous of people here living through the birth of this country.



Back to Mandela-- the Apartheid Museum had an exhibit about Nelson Mandela’s life. It was so interesting. One display was photos of him from childhood on, but there were no photos of Mandela for those 27 years of his life, when he was in prison. The apartheid gov’t. wouldn’t let any images of him out, because that could encourage those working to get him out of prison. And I heard that Stevie Wonder wrote a song for Mandela when he was in prison, to remind the world that he was still there: the song was “I just called, to say, I love you” Now isn’t that neat?

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