Getting to know Cape Town

It’s 7pm. I am sitting on my balcony overlooking the city lights. A blanket, a cup of tea, and the feeling of tranquility are my company. There is something so mesmerizing about this view; it must be what a king feels when he looks out over his kingdom. I can't believe I just wrote that. I am getting so sappy here. But I really wish I wish I could share this with so many of you back home. For now I am tempted to just sit here, staring out at Table Mountain, but I have to write about today’s visit to Robben Island before I lose this tingling feeling that has taken over my body.

For those of you who don’t know what Robben Island is, it is the island where political prisoners were held under Apartheid. Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years there. We took a ferry to the island and learned that there was much more to it than just the prison. The island was often used by the Dutch and British militaries, and in the 1800’s it was an exile for lepers and epileptics. One story was particularly touching; it was about an elderly German couple with leprosy. They were sent to the leper colony where they were segregated by gender to prevent reproduction. They each lived 5 years on the island without once seeing each other, but they died within an 1 ½ hours of each other. I guess that must be true love.

But let me move on to the more compelling part of the story, our tour of the prison. We were taken through the prison by an ex-political prisoner who served 10 years of an 18 year sentence on Robben Island. He was one of the last 31 prisoners to be released in 1991. He was a member of the ANC, and he was convicted for blowing up a military building in Jo-burg. No one was killed, but many were injured. At only 19 years old he was sent to Robben Island. He began the tour with an apology for his shortness of breath, a result of broken ribs he obtained while being tortured in the prison. He is also partially deaf in one ear, and he says his “man parts” were used as an ashtray for the guards. I know there were more terrible things that have happened to them but I had trouble hearing everything he said.

He took us into the unit where he was housed and showed us the mats where everyone slept. It wasn’t until the late 80’s (I believe it was 87), that they were actually given beds due to Red Cross interventions. Until that time they basically lined up their mats and spooned on the floor to keep warm. The bathrooms of the prison doubled as schoolhouses, as they were the only part of the unit that was lit throughout the night. After the unit was locked down for the night and the house lights were shut off, political education began in the bathrooms. Some of the top justices, ambassadors, and members of the South African Parliament today came from those bathrooms. They had only a few smuggled books and documents, but they taught each other as best they could.

During the day, after work, the prisoners had a system for holding political debates. Because the rooms were tapped, they built boxes to cover the speakers when they wanted to hold their meetings. When the guards grew suspicious of the silence, the lookout prisoners listened for the slamming of the yard gate and everyone scrambled to remove the boxes and get to their beds. It sounds like these guards were not too sharp, but I suppose they thought they had nothing to fear from men who were incarcerated. The only prisoners who were kept isolated to prevent collaboration were the leaders such a Nelson Mandela. He was kept in a cell that was 6 by 6 meters. Mandela planted a garden outside his cell where he stored documents to be circulated to the rest of the political prisoners. He also kept his manuscript for The Long Walk to Freedom in that garden. Throughout his incarceration he continued to communicate with the outside world through smuggled letters. Even in his isolation, he was an effective leader.

The classes of Apartheid seemed to ironically work to the advantage of the prisoners at Robben Island. Blacks were kept at the bottom of the hierarchy, with less freedom, worse food, clothing and housing, and more demanding work than the colored prisoners. But the coloreds were able to network between prisoners because they held the food delivery and service jobs in the prison. They were able to snatch newspapers and other documents for the black population. It seems that the very system the whites had put in place and were fighting to preserve was designed to self destruct. Eventually the black population started hunger strikes to demand equal rations to the criminal and colored populations. Finally, thanks to the networking between coloreds and blacks, Mandela was able to get a letter out to opposition members in Parliament to get global attention brought to the injustices at Robben Island.

I am trying to remember the other powerful anecdotes that were shared with us today, but really I just walked away with an awe for the evolution that took place within those walls. These men, who were locked away as they fought for their freedom, men who were tortured and abused, are now fighting another battle. They are crusading for forgiveness of the past. They are living next to the men who withheld their freedom just 15 years ago. It was 1991 when the last of the political prisoners were released, and since that year the focus of these heroic men has been on reconciliation and absolution. Our tour guide even invited a guard and his family over for dinner after he was released. I don’t know where that mercy is born. From everything I’ve heard and read, it seems Mandela was so inspirational that people resisted the urge to fight and followed him into a peaceful revolution and rebirth of a country. After years of riots and resistance, after thousands were displaced and lives were lost, Apartheid gave way to Democracy overnight without a single shot fired. The fact that Mandela was able to work with the men who took 27 years of his life is incomprehensible to me. He is the Martin Luther King of South Africa, the Ghandi of India, a symbol of hope for this young century.

Before I move on from Robben Island, I have to share just one more example of the depth of soul and strength of spirit I discovered there. Our guide (I missed the introduction of his name) told us a story about one day in prison when his father was supposed to visit him. He was escorted off the unit and to an office, where he was casually informed that his father had been shot 8 times. As a black man, trying to visit his son who was an enemy of the state, he was accosted upon his arrival on the island and was shot by the guards. I tried then, and am still trying now, to understand what must have gone through his mind at the very moment he was given that news. Fortunately, his father was taken to ICU and survived, but he has never walked again. If that were me, I don’t know if even Mandela’s charisma could extinguish the hatred I would feel for those who nearly killed my father. Not only did they nearly take his life, but they were promoted for carrying out their duties.

Just writing about this makes me feel like I was at a Holocaust Museum today. We learn of ethnic cleansing and genocide as if it happened a lifetime ago. We have adopted the slogan “lest we forget,” but the World seems to have already forgotten as we idly sat by during the Rwandan genocide just as we are now still mulling over what to do in Sudan. Not fifteen years ago those who stood against apartheid were banished from society while the world slept. There are so many problems that still plague South Africa today, but the adversity that has been overcome in such a short time is astounding and uplifting. This country has great potential if it can build on the fundamental beliefs in unification that Mandela instilled in so many.

Okay, I think I’m done with Robben Island at last. Now I just have to backtrack to cover Sunday and Monday. On Sunday we all attended a church service in Guguletu, one of the black townships on the outskirts of Cape Town. We arrived to the echoing sounds of a choir as strong as an army. But as we entered the church, it wasn’t a choir at all, rather it was the entire congregation dancing and singing together. The service was so interactive and entertaining despite the fact that I do not speak Xhosa and was unable to understand most of it. It was of course a much longer service than my patience could ever endure in the States, but with so much dancing and celebration I left feeling an appreciation for Church rather than exhaustion from it.

I must include that Guguletu was not nearly as impoverished as I expected. I felt extremely elitist even thinking that way, because clearly these people have less than anyone I know back home, but I couldn’t help comparing it to Tanzania. Everyone told me that Cape Town would be a city of vast inequality where the rich live well and the poor live on nothing. But everyone in this church was extremely well dressed and everyone’s clothes looked like new. The town had real roads and gas stations and restaurants; it wasn’t the typical village of informal housing that I’ve grown accustomed to in Tanzania. Even in the most depressed areas, where the houses were one room shacks, there was electricity and easy access to main roads. I kept remembering the home visits in Tanzania, and how far we would walk just to reach some communities because they are so far removed from so-called civilization. But I suppose everything is relative, and while there is more economic hardship in the places I’ve seen in Tanzania, there is far more social inequality here in South Africa. I guess only time will tell which I find to be more upsetting.

Monday we had the opportunity to learn more about the history of social injustice right here in Cape Town. We visited The District Six Museum, a site to remember the deportation and relocation of over 60,000 blacks and coloreds to townships in the Cape Flats. In the 1960’s, District Six was ordered to become an area for whites only. The less desirable lands surrounding Cape Town were then designated for the construction of the black townships and colored communities that still stand today. I never knew much of the history of this city, or why it was that the racial majority was forced to its outskirts. Visiting this museum and speaking with people who were evacuated from District Six 50 years ago gave me a better idea of what Apartheid really means.

I have already mentioned the Holocaust as a point of reference, and it still serves as the best comparison for me of the systematic deprivation of a population. The Holocaust culminated in annihilation and then Europe was then rebuilt. But in South Africa, the economic injustice instilled by the relocation has yet to be overcome. The townships are getting larger, not smaller; District Six has yet to be repopulated by its original inhabitants, and a country whose leadership now reflects its population has yet to find a way to rectify the dispossession of land and assets that took place under Apartheid. Blacks were forced to carry pass cards wherever they went, much as the Jews in Germany wore stars. These cards were their very freedom, caught without them they could be imprisoned for up to 6 months without a trial. But there are obviously infinite disparities between the Holocaust and Apartheid. For one, the Holocaust was the persecution of a minority, while in South Africa, the white minority managed to suppress over 60 percent of the population. How can this happen?

Maybe the most important part of this visit for me was our discussion with Vernon, our program coordinator. Mr. Rose received his Masters in social work from Chapel Hill and attended Duke Divinity School. He also has a degree from Yale. It was Vernon who designed this program specifically for UNC, and I am beginning to learn just how fortunate we are to have him in our lives here. Vernon was relocated from District Six when he was just a boy. He worked hard to earn an education and fight against Apartheid. In 1989 he spent his birthday in jail after being arrested during a protest in Cape Town. He is extremely well respected and well connected. He is even hopefully getting us into a meeting with the Council of Churches where we will meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I begin my work tomorrow at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, so it would be especially rewarding for me to be able to meet him after about a month of working for one of his many social projects.

After hearing just a taste of Vernon’s life story, we all immediately decided we must invite him to our house for dinner soon to pick his brain and learn more from his diverse life experiences. I am really looking forward to that dinner.

9/7/07

I never finished this post; it is Friday now and I have started class and work since I last wrote on Tuesday. I have also been trying to learn how to click my toungue a thousand different ways to speak Xhosa. Africaans is another language we are trying to tackle with little success. Unfortunately, my moody computer has given my all types of troubles since then and I do not presently have the time to write. I am at UCT right now and have been trying to get working internet. Now that I have it I must email some St. Lucia pictures to Connie for her fundraiser. But I will write again next week for sure.