Apartheid

“The only difference between the United States and South Africa is that South Africa is honest about what it is.” – Miriam Makeba

Today (written 7/10/14), we went to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. At this point in our journey, our hosts and teachers have talked openly about the ugliness of apartheid. I have been humbled by how freely stories have been shared with us.

Visiting the museum was an incredibly moving experience, especially since there is an entire portion of the exhibit dedicated to the life and work of Nelson Mandela. The air was thick and heavy in the exhibit. There is so much life, and hate, and death, and pain, and shame, and violence… and hope, and power represented. 

Apartheid Museum Entrance

There were many experiences and quotations that gave me pause throughout the exhibit. There are three in particular that I would like to share as I reflect. 

1. The wall of laws. There was an entire two-story wall COVERED with the laws that were passed to create and support apartheid. That means that lawmakers passed law, after law, after law, after law, to segregate, disenfranchise, rob, and oppress black Africans. Apartheid (slavery, Jim Crow, the Holocaust)… These don’t just “happen.” They are systematically built through deliberate actions, veiled as humanitarian or charitable in nature, allowed to persist into enforcement through prejudice, racism, and propaganda. 
2. The presidential justification for these laws. There was a video of the then-prime minister justifying these laws as the means to create the best South Africa for white citizens and the best outcomes for “barbaric, semi-barbaric, semi-educated, and educated black South Africans.” He was using his sense of superiority as a white person to justify oppression as “being in the best interest” of the oppressed. Close your eyes, switch the continent…This is awfully familiar…
3. The room filled with hanging nooses. I can’t type that and not get chills/shudder. Each noose represented a death sentence for opposing the apartheid regime. There are no words that would appropriately honor the sacrifice, pain, and loss… I could only sit in silence and be present.

I found myself thinking back to the Miriam Makeba quote about South Africa’s honesty about what it is. It made me reflect on the history of racism, slavery, Jim Crow, oppression within the US. Particularly, how they are (or are not) discussed, validated, and addressed. Mr. Baker has confirmed that the truth about apartheid is taught in SA schools, is told to children, and is on the forefront of the minds of their leadership. I doubt that the honesty, self-reflection, responsibility, and openness we have witnessed is universal with all South Africans (a world could never be so perfect). However, it did give me hope that one day all countries would face their ugliest of sins with as much openness and candor. The desire of a nation to talk about it, to heal, to change course, to find a new way is a difficult journey, but is something to be PROUD of!

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.