~Khalil Gibran
The earth my indeed long to feel my feet pushing against it, but at the end of the day it is my feet that are achy and tired, not the earth. My legs, my back, toes, ankles, arches... they all ache from the adventures of the last couple of days. (Actually, that should be "adventures", given that yesterday I found myself slightly lost on my way back from the grocery store... more on that in a moment.) I had expectations about the way the city would look, how I would fit into the ebb and flow of the space; however, my perceptions of it all were undoubtedly wrong. My understanding of Cape Town was couched only in travel books, news items, and academic literature, and I pictured a more... sanitized (for lack of a better word) city, given the history of the area. The city was inhabited by natives prior to the arrival of the Dutch East India Company, who used it largely as a stopover for their boats headed around the Cape toward Europe. A fortress was erected and eventually a large garden was cultivated in order to provide fresh food to the sailors upon the boats. Today, the city boasts the gardens as part of an historical, cultural walk, maintaining the area as a tourist attraction. I took some time to meander through the garden and had the following revelations:
1. One of gentlemen who hangs out in the park and plays guitar REALLY likes Lynyrd Skynyrd. He played the heck outta Sweet Home Alabama... many, many times.
2. As I was walking down the beautiful brick path adjacent to the garden, I heard a rustling in the grass. I looked over, cautiously, only to see the biggest, fattest gray squirrel (outside of Indiana University's campus) pop his tiny head and incredibly large tummy up out of a pile of leaves. Apparently, Cecil Rhodes brought them to the city in the 1800s- and unlike the British, the squirrels have yet to try and take over the city.
3. Smack dab in the middle of the gardens, I came across this statue of ol' Cecil R. He's gesturing to the hinterlands, encouraging people (let's face it, mostly white people) to go and take land and enlarge the imperial kingdom. While there are conflicting stories about Mr. Rhodes and the way he treated those working for him, I think that desiring to have countries that you have helped to conquer named after you says quite a bit about a man's character (North and South Rhodesia).
This brings me to one last point. As I was wondering around yesterday- not aimlessly, just took the scenic way home- I couldn't help but notice that everyone in this suburb (aka, neighborhood to those of us in the States) chose to live in what might be akin to a fortress. There are security walls around 99.9% of the homes that I have walked past in the area, with additional layers of protection (barbed/razor wire, backed by security companies, large dogs in the yard, etc) for good measure. I'm sure that if I visited other suburbs, the scene would most likely be the same, too. My point for bringing it up is to say this: how does a society move on from being forcibly separated when a good portion of it seems to simply be waiting for the other shoe to drop? Many white folks I've observed and spoken to over the past few days seem to live in fear (even if it isn't explicitly stated) that they will, someday soon, be put in a vulnerable position by a member of another racial group. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my Aunt Robin about South Africa, she made a great analogy of what seems to have happened: The policies passed at the local and national level created a bedrock on which society has been sitting upon for decades. When granted independence, dirt was shoveled on top of all the settled sediments and left there for show- but nothing was ever done to the stone underneath. I think that the biggest misunderstanding that Mandela and other leaders of the ANC has was that they did not seem to think that they had to re-build the state. Yes, they radically changed the constitution and implemented programs in order to equalize services throughout the country, but these seem more cosmetic than anything. And while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was aimed at trying to reconcile wrongdoers and victims, it was individual-specific, not a society-wide program. Most post-conflict societies seem to react to the peace agreements and new policy documents being drawn up as a turnstile to the future; once all of the letters are dotted and crossed, the signatures have dried, they no longer seem to view the conflict as a present problem. However, I honestly do not believe that conflict- especially a protracted one- truly just ends. It may shift and morph into a new type of conflict in the absence of the old institutions, but it is still there until dealt with. And I'm not quite convinced that South Africans have completely dealt with the new societal conflict at hand.
As an outsider, it's easy for me to criticize, I know. Much of what I am seeing and observing is constantly being held up to my experiences in the US and judged as being right or wrong, something which I don't want to do. Hopefully, though, my new experiences (even my Sweet Home Alabama serenader!) will give me a renewed outlook on my dissertation, and a different pair of goggles through which to examine my topic (which I will talk about tomorrow). Until then, my old, tired legs and I are going to rest up on the couch while watching a bit of American telly. Cheers!
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