This Christmas I went to South Africa to do the whole roots thing, only to find that mine are twisted, gnarled and thorny. There’s not a lot of pride I can have in my ancestry as a white South African. Both of my parents were born and raised in South Africa, and my mom’s side of the family immigrated to the country five or six generations ago. This means that my ancestors were stealing land, diamonds and various kinds of resources. But the reality is, if you’re white, yours probably were too.
So, I have this overwhelming guilt as a liberal, middle-class, educated white person … and as if the guilt couldn’t get any worse, just add the fact that I am a white South African into the mix, and I may as well smother myself with a pillow from my armchair-liberal’s armchair.
My parents were very against the apartheid regime and even participated in rallies and protests at the University of Witswaterstrand. Apparently, the South African government had someone at the post office open and read my parents mail, even once they had left the country for England in the ’70s. When I asked my parents how they knew their mail had been read, they told me that the letters were just slit open with no attempt to hide the invasion of privacy — probably this was an intimidation tactic as much as anything.
I remember going to South Africa as a child in the mid ’80s when apartheid was in full swing. Even at the age of eight I could sense that there was something very strange going on. Because my parents were very against the apartheid government, they hardly ever went back to visit relatives. Part of the problem was that there was much political and ideological disagreement within my own family, so reunions were always fraught with contention.
This divide in my family was somewhat bridged when my brother moved to Johannesburg three years ago to conduct HIV/AIDS research. At that time I had the attitude of “Yeah, yeah, go off and try to save the world, I am going to curl up in a big fluffy cushion-covered window seat at an Ivy League institution, blithely sipping Earl Grey and lightly chuckling over my thrice read copy of Emma.”
My brother broke out of this western privileged comfort zone and actually tried to “do something.” But this vague and unquantifiable “doing something” in a foreign country is very sticky. It is far too easy to self-righteously barge in to another land with the misguided presumption that “white-man with a master’s degree in public health knows best.”
Who’s to say that people in South Africa want any foreign aid, and who’s to say that the western perspective is concentrating on the most salient issues? Clearly AIDS is an enormous problem, but often foreign aid ignores problems that are less familiar to those of us on this side of the Atlantic. We have all heard of the AIDS crisis in South Africa, but what about the overwhelming need for clean water, or the fact that each year over one million people die of malaria, most of whom are young children in Sub-Saharan areas.
Even my brother, who went to Jo’burg with the “I want to save the world” attitude, has come to realize the complexities of foreign aid in South Africa. I suppose the flip side of those westerners who are arrogant enough to believe that their services are wanted in foreign countries are those who just don’t give a shit. And I wonder if Cornell students, as a whole, give a shit about Africa.
I am reminded of last year’s summer reading project, where the freshmen were assigned to read Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup, and how there was resounding cheers when one of the panel speakers asked the freshman audience “Who hated this book?” I was even more taken aback when a young man announced that he thought the book was petty and that there were more important things to study, like the Second World War.
I don’t understand why Africana studies are not more central to the liberal arts education at Cornell. I suppose that there are an infinite number of cultures that are absent from the curriculum. Or, what is most probable is that I neglected to balance out my own education. I didn’t take enough courses outside of the western-centric bubble. But generally, I don’t think that Africana studies are that accessible to the undergraduate population. I remember when I went to take a course on the history of southern Africa at the Africana Center, I was the only student who showed up on the first day of class.
But it isn’t really fair for me to get preachy on this subject. I, like most Americans, had, and still have, a total misconception of “Africa.” Firstly, when I used to call my brother overseas I would ask, “How’s Africa?” He would get so annoyed and say, “You can’t just ask ‘How’s Africa’! Africa is a massive continent! How the fuck am I supposed to know how all of the countries in Africa are?”
I was only in South Africa for a month, and to be honest, I saw very little of the country. When I was in Johannesburg, I was mostly behind a massive white-washed wall lined with barbed wire. After the fall of the apartheid government, the white community erected enormous walls with electrical fencing and surveillance cameras. On my aunt’s street there is a man who drives up and down four blocks of road with a rifle as part of the “armed response protection.” My aunt still has a full-time maid who lives on the premises and who refers to my uncle as “master.” At the country club my brother, father and uncle were addressed as “boss.” The racial dynamics in South Africa are far too complicated for me, having only been in the country for a month, to possibly comprehend.
From my perspective, Johannesburg seemed a lot like Los Angeles in terms of landscape. The city is sprawling and very westernized. What is striking is the abject poverty juxtaposed with the extreme wealth. There are people in massive shopping malls buying Prada and getting makeovers at the Clinique counter (very L.A.), but as soon as you step out of that insulated world of luxury there is an endless stretch of shanty towns as far as the eye can see.
I am an ignorant American who knows very little about South Africa. However, I learned that Soweto is not an African name, rather it is short for “South Western Township,” and that there are no tigers in Africa (except for in the zoo).