5/26/10

Yesterday, we had a long discussion about group dynamics. We learned how a group forms and the steps a group goes through as it developed. Within this discussion, we touched upon the idea of a peace circle. A peace circle asks, in regard to a conflict: 1. What happened? 2. What impact did it have on you? 3. How do we repair the situation? In order to gain a fuller understanding of the concept, the group did a peace circle focused on solving a conflict had while grocery shopping.

Our first day in Cape Town, the group went grocery shopping with the original intention of buying a few community items (bread, butter, etc.) and sharing the cost. Once we got the grocery store, however, the group could not agree on what should be bought and the idea was frustrated and dissipated; everyone ended buying their own food (except for, understandably, the siblings). While some people were upset with the situation because they thought there had been an agreement and by not following though, we were being wasteful, others (particularly myself and one other) were happy to not share food.

During the peace circle, we all went around and told our side of what happened, how it impacted us, and how we might possibly have resolved the situation. After the peace circle, Professor Keasley asked us what we thought of the exercise. Some liked it, some did not. I, personally, did not think the peace circle was helpful tool. And in general, I don’t know if I would have found any personal satisfaction in the exercise in many other situations.

The people I care deeply for, I really care for; that list includes family and some friends who might as well be family. But the people who don’t fit in this category, I honestly don’t know if I would full heartily put their own needs and wants before mine. I remember something a roommate in Boston told me one time when I was putting other people before myself and, as a result, coming out on the short end of the stick. She told me; “Nobody cares about you except for yourself. You have to put yourself first because no one else ever will.” She meant that people naturally and instinctually put their own needs ahead of everyone else’s needs, and if you always think of other people first, your needs and wants won’t be met. Her words have stuck with me and it’s a mentality, for the most part, I have maintained. Call me selfish or thoughtless, but, as we have touched upon in class, don’t we all live in this capitalist mindset? Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I don’t care or want to help others; I just always make sure I’m helped too.

I want to tie this idea into our discussion today about justice and forgiveness. A lot of people expressed a strong value in forgiveness; that to develop and grow and work through things, forgiveness is necessary. I, personally, do not agree with this at all. If someone wrongs me, unless you fit in that group of people whom I am close with, forgiveness is basically out of the question. If you wrong me once, you could wrong me again and I am not going to let that happen. Justice, however, is a whole different animal. Justice is something I can get satisfaction out of. As I mentioned in class, justice is a confirmation that I was right and what you did was wrong. Professor emphasized that this is a very American mindset; we are an incredibly retributive society.

It seems that, if America wants to achieve reconciliation, the particular mindset that I embody involving the individual before the group and justice as superior to forgiveness must be overturned. The entire society must agree and make a legitimate effort to exclude these values or reconciliation, the focus on the whole rather than the parts, cannot be achieved.

In regards to the Professor’s last question, what are you going to do with this information; I would have to say I that won’t do much. I like my individualistic attitude and if other people aren’t going to put the group over the individual, neither am I. Until the entire United States society decides to change, I am probably won’t change either.

5/25/10

Our lecturer today, Melissa Steyn, was the first and will be the only Afrikaans lecturer we will have on this trip. I had been hoping to hear the Afrikaans’ side of the story while we are in South Africa and I felt that she was able to bring some of the oppressors’ point of view to the table. The thing that stood out to me the most was her personal recollection of her childhood and adolescence mindset. She stressed the fact that being born into a position of power within the apartheid system forms an identity, which rests in the embodiment of what the system stands for. It is not that she hated black people but, rather, that their suppression was just part of life.

Steyn also discussed racialization, pointing out that one major difference between the States and South Africa is that her country was aware of the racialization in the country because it was institutionalized, while people in the United States have no idea that it even happens. In the States, because racialization is not in place legislatively, people are blind to the fact that it happens.

Steyn’s two points made me think about racialization and suppression in our own country. Americans don’t like to think that they are racialized; they believe that because we technically have equal rights not one could be racially separated or suppressed. But as the speaker pointed out, racialization happens even on the very basic level of nightclubs. Radicalization happens but is often masked by the excuse of different tastes. Someone says that they go to a certain bar because they like the music at that bar, but in fact the deep-rooted reason is because people of their same race go there, that bar is comfortable.

People in our own society, in the States, are born into systems, which also dictate their idea of where they belong and their overall mindsets of the social norm. People think that because they have received a better education or live in a better area, that that means they are better than individuals outside of that particular community. There is a hierarchy that is put in place at birth by our “equal” society. The ideals that dictate this hierarchy and racialization must be first acknowledged and second addressed.

This racialization, segregation of race in public areas, is something that I will be noticing and paying a lot more attention to from now on. I will have a better understanding of why the groups form in places like the UMC and how that formation has been dictated by several psychological factors.

5/24/10

The presentation given by our second lecturer today, Don Foster, concretely explained that post-apartheid South Africa has a long way to go before reaching reconciliation. Up until this point I have gotten the sense that, although the country might not actually be reconciled, most of the people feel like they were getting close. As Professor Keasley mentioned to me once, South Africa is a very ambitious country. This ambition has, up until today’s lecture, seemed to be embodied by the positive attitudes and mindset of the South Africa People. But after this lecture, it became clear that end yet to come.

Foster laid out a number of divisions made in South African society (racialization, class, gender, and age). He also pointed out major problem areas in the country such as HIV/AIDS, murder rate, and unemployment rate. He referred to these items in the context of social inequality of the Colored and Asian populations and even more so in the African populations. Foster presented statistics that gave insight into the racial tensions between the different races and explained that a lot of these tensions could be resolved by employing the contact hypothesis. Although a lot of people are willing to make contact, a lot of other people are not. Up until this point, I have gotten the sense that almost all of South Africa (at least 80%) was willing to put in the effort to reconcile. This impression, however, was proven false by Foster’s statistics. So, reconciliation, at least through contact, is not being achieved at a rate I had assumed to be very fast. His last slide listed the items necessary to truly reach reconciliation (or for the contact hypothesis to work): human security, political culture, crosscutting political relationships, dialogue, and historical confrontation. Without these components, reconciliation cannot be achieved.

Foster also, at the beginning of the lecture, reemphasized a point that Professor Keasley has made over and over again, that South Africa and America have had a very similar history; a lot of the things that happened in South Africa have also happened in the United States. Because of this, Foster’s lecture laid out exactly what needs to be in place for our own society to achieve reconciliation; it made me think about the elements we do and do not have which are necessary for successful reconciliation. It seems that most of the items Foster listed have not been achieved in the American context.

I won’t go through every item and explain why I feel it is not present in the States but I will list a few just to give an example. Foster mentioned that there needed to be a high degree of human security, two being physical and economical. Last year I lived on the Hill and when all the attacks on females were happening (starting at the very end of October and stretching on for months) I stopped feeling safe at night. I worked at Mamacitas on the Hill and I remember the police coming in to talk to the kitchen staff. They told me they were going around and talking to all of the Mexican staff that worked on the Hill (an action that could only further a racial divide).

Economically, we all know how uncomfortable many Americans are in their present financial situation. People are getting laid off left and right and financial security is always on everybody’s mind. Low income associates with crime, poor education, and poor health. If people are in living in fear of these things, they will do what they can to avoid them. Therefore, they will be thinking of their own needs more than the needs of others and reconciliation will not be a priority, getting the job instead of the next guy will be the highest on the list.

In regards to political culture, Foster mentioned that there must be trust in the political leadership. In America, our leader’s motivations and decisions are constantly being called into question. Living in Boulder, we hear a lot about how untrustworthy people felt President Bush was. Without faith in political leaders, the government cannot be a reliable source for initiating or supporting reconciliation. If people always think that there is an ulterior motive furthering the aim of a political leader, trust and reconciliation will never come to be. Clearly, the necessities are not in place to achieve reconciliation in our American society.

After reflecting on the American situation lit up by Foster, I think that I will be more sensitive to shifts or changes in our society, led by either general opinion or legislatively, which reflect the elements needed to achieve reconciliation in our own society.

5/18/10

Today’s lecturer, Zwelethu Jolobe, focused the last part of his presentation on the nature and role of the TRC in South Africa’s reconciliation process. He made a point to explain that the TRC has had its fair share of critics, the strongest of which have been directed towards the reparation committee. How should people be compensated for their suffering? Who should get what and how much? When we visited Bo-Kaap later in the day, it occurred to me that a major hole in the TRC’s work was also a sort of legislative reform, legislative reparation.

When we first arrived in Bo-Kaap, Bilqees commented on a hotel that was built very high, blocking much of the gorgeous view that would have been available. Bilqees explained that the hotel was built despite the opinion and opposition of the community. This is due to a law that was put in place during apartheid, when the people who live there had no legislative vote. Their community will have to deal with the eyesore because of decisions made without any consideration of the their wants.

Right before this I had asked Professor Keasley if the people of South Africa had any control or received any economic gain from the valuable mineral resources, diamonds or gold. He explained that De Beers, a foreign-based company, largely owned the diamond mines. As Jolobe emphasized in his lecture, these mines play a very serious role in the history of the South African people; the mines negatively and heavily dictated the lives of non-whites. And now, when I expected the people to have some control over their own resources as a sort of reparation, the South African resources are still putting money in non South African pockets.

Legally, it seems, compensation for the apartheid has yet to bloom into fruition. The actions of the apartheid are still echoing throughout the South African populations. I, for one, expected there to have been more effort to correct the wrong doings. If the goal is reconciliation, shouldn’t legislative put in place to negate legislation formed by the oppressors, which harms the oppressed?

I noticed that both these instances, the hotel and the mines, are economically driven; they are not based on consideration for other people’s quality of life. In discussion today I mentioned that I was surprised to learn that apartheid was not mainly driven by a racist ideology but, rather, it was put into place for economic gain. On top of that, the end of apartheid was not due to the realization of the inhuman nature of apartheid but due to a shortage in options for the NP. In the eyes of the National Party, the termination of apartheid was not the right decision but the lesser of evils. This mentality still seems to stand. The economy, not community or human rights, is the strong hand in many of the people’s lives.

I find this interesting in light of the new Arizona immigration law legalizes racial profiling. The New York Times does a good job of explaining the law; “[t]he law would require the police ‘when practicable’ to detain people they reasonably suspected were in the country without authorization. It would also allow the police to charge immigrants with a state of crime for not carrying immigration documents. And it allows residents to sue cities if they believe the law is not being enforced.”* After learning about the economic elements that caused apartheid, I have had to reassess my thoughts on this law.

At first, like with apartheid, I assumed that this law came out of a racist mentality. I now, however, believe that there must be economic implications, which pushed this law forward. I wonder if the weakened economy and high unemployment rates have something to do with this law. Companies are loosing money, which would increase the demand for cheap labor. Illegal immigrants can be paid less because they are often willing to work for less. If the immigrants have jobs and the American born people don’t have jobs, the latter group is going to find a way to open up these jobs.

I have no idea if the job market is the root of this law, I’ve only taken one economics class five years ago, but it is one example of how the economy might be driving racist practices today in our own society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22immig.html

2/17/10

The first lecturer on Monday morning, Elizabeth van Heyningen, emphasized South Africa’s attempt to reconcile tension by acknowledging and embracing a common past. She discussed the Maropeng Tumulus and the Cradle of Humankind, which preserves an item of commonality for all Africans, the formation and evolution of humankind. It shows that every person on the entire planet came from one place; we all have a common past. By recognizing a common denominator, people can begin to bridge the racial, cultural, and historical gap.

In one of our class discussion, we were asked why Americans don’t seem to have any ties to a common past; the American identity doesn’t really exist. The only thing the class could agree upon is that, in America, we all know and accept that we are all different, we all have different histories. The only element that fastens a common identity is, then, having nothing in common.

After thinking about this, I realize that we do have a common history. We have events like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the obtainment of black and women’s rights. We also have embarrassments in our past such as the colonization and subsequent deaths of thousands of Native Americans, slavery, the Depression, and the Japanese Internment. Americans do have a common past that we could look back on and think, “we were all in it together.” My question is, why is there a disconnect?

It seems that, if we Americans are striving for a total reconciliation of different cultures and races, that the history we do have must be embraced and celebrated. We also must recognize that every person has had a part and is connected to our past. Our heritage, as young as it is, has to become a part of who each and every American is in order to share and understand each other’s history.

I am not suggesting that we leave the roots that we currently define our identity through (such as Irish, Vietnamese, or any other ethnicity) but, rather, that we fully embrace a second identity, an American identity.

5/14/2010

At the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, Professor Keasley mentioned that the school children were all very proud to wear their uniforms. Because I wore, and loathed, a school uniform up until fifth grade, I could not understand where their pride came from. My favorite days in elementary school were the rare occasion when uniforms weren’t required. When I began public school in sixth grade, not having to wear a uniform was one of my favorite parts about my new school. But, after reading the Mandela’s section on the Nationalistic view of education for blacks in Africa, I now have an understanding of how the pride formulates.

On pages 166 and 167 of Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela explains that, although while he was in grade school the black and white schools were relatively equal, the government forced missionary schools to either hand over the school to the government or they would slowly receive less and less money, essentially closing the school down. The black schools then received about six times less amount of money per student than the white schools. The reasoning provided by the minister of Bantu education was “that education ‘ must train and teach people in accordance with their opportunities in life.’ His meaning was that Africans did not and would not have any opportunities in their lives, therefore, why prepare them for anything... In short, Africans should be trained to be menial workers, to be in a position of perpetual subordination to the white man” (167). Good education, then, was a privilege reserved for only a certain group of people. Education, which Mandela emphasizes throughout his book as a road towards a better life, was unavailable the black community and therefore did not offer a means to a better lifestyle.

Throughout my entire life education has always been the most important thing. Grades were no joke in my family; my brother and I had to do well in school or there was hell to pay. College was always a given and graduate school is assumed. My parents made it a point to emphasize that the reason education was so important was because it led to opportunity. Education opened doors, not that we had to walk through them but it was better than leaving them closed. While the younger me resented their views, I now see how my education has left me able to do whatever I want while many of my friends from Michigan who never attended college have been left with very few options.

While my education was assumed and, in a way, forced on me, good education for the black community in South Africa was simply not an option. And if education equals opportunity and financial or political or social equality, stability in those categories for a black child was unrealistic. The uniforms for the black children seem to represent the ability to reach towards equality and success.

I asked one of the men who worked at Lebo’s about his thoughts on school uniforms. He said that the uniforms were a status symbol. If you were able to go to a good school and receive a quality education, you would other people to know. The school uniforms are a way of showing off; just like kids in the United States wear their cool new shoes to school, African children wear their school uniforms.

After reflecting on my own experience with education and the experience in South Africa, I can easily see how uniforms are worn with pride. Like my parents, all parents want their children to have as many opportunities as possible; they want their children have endless doors wide open for them. The uniforms represent the ability to take part in further their lives.

The view of uniforms in the United States reflects the general feelings of education. Because children in our country are guaranteed an education, we have a sense of entitlement towards learning. People don’t appreciate education and, therefore, do not invest nearly enough time or money to make the most of the opportunity. Teachers are underpaid and students don’t take their grades seriously. The mentality towards our country’s education system has to change if we are going to produce students that value education and use it to accomplish a better lifestyle.

5/13/2010

Lebo, during his talk with the class, mentioned that during the time of the rebellion, before the end of apartheid, life was dictated, to a certain extent, by “survival of the fittest” rules. You had to be strong and smart to be active in politics and survive. Lebo mentioned that in the field across from the hostel two people during this time period were burned. Life was chaotic and dangerous.

The original intention of the Europeans was to civilize, or Christianize, the South African people. Although this intention was replaced by the want to gain economical and political resources, if we keep the original objective of the want to civilize in mind it seems that by the point of the rebellion civilization had completely regressed. Mandela describes his childhood society, in his Long Walk to Freedom, as both socially and economically organized. Tradition held certain ways of doing things and this way was accepted and revered. With the invasion of the Europeans, the system was interrupted. In an attempt to create a “better” society, it became much worse by the time of Lebo’s father’s political involvement. The violence and inhuman acts suggest a return to a more barbaric society.

At the Apartheid Museum we saw image after image of completely inhuman violence. We read stories about people being treated like animals. A person’s race was not defined by their own feelings and thoughts but, rather, by a racist government. People’s movements and actives were monitored and restricted. These examples of the apartheid area do not suggest a colonized or Christianized society. The people had regressed to an uncivilized state to a level that was much worse than before the Europeans arrived in South Africa. The attempt to “civilize” and “help” the people resulted in the exact opposite of the said intention. Lebo’s father was a result of this turn; he was a victim of the intention gone south.

There are people today who are still going into other countries to help or civilize the people. With the South African history in mind, these undertakings must be either carefully monitored and handled sensitively or not exist at all. It was very easy in South Africa for the positively motivated actions to be bad for the people and turn south for everyone involved.

The experience of Lebo’s father and Lebo himself prove the destructive results that are possible when other people’s wants, needs, and values are not taken into account or considered inept. This type of thinking and the misunderstanding of other cultures along with the complete disregard for human rights is something that has recognized by everyone so history does not repeat itself. The world must step in and hold those who disregard human life responsible so that a situation like South Africa’s is not able to begin all over again somewhere else.