Soweto

My previous note hasn't posted yet--perhaps this will
spur it on...

I'm staying in Sandton, South Africa, a suburb of
"Joburg" that seems to be the Scottsdale of the
area--fancy schmancy.

I saw the other side today on a tour of Soweto.
Hugely mixed emotions about going there as a tourist,
feeling a bit of a voyeur, and yet deeply moved by the
successful struggle of people like Nelson Mandela,
Bishop Tutu, and Steven Biko (today is the anniversary
of his death at the hands of the police).

Soweto was formed when black families were forcibly
moved from their homes in Johannesburg. Houses were
bulldozed, and personal belongs dumped in this area
out of town, named Soweto for south western township.

We learned about the Soweto uprising, when 600
children and youth were killed by police, and visited
the Hector Pieterson museum, honoring the 13 year old
boy who was the first person killed by police in the
uprising. The uprising was prompted by the
government's insistence that all education be in the
language of Afrikaaners, a version of dutch imposed
from without.

We saw where Bishop Desmond Tutu lives today, and saw
Mandela's house, rebuilt after a fire bombing in 1985.
We also saw Mandela's current home in a different
part of the city.

We walked through a squatter's village, very similar
to the colonia we've worked in in Agua Prieta, Mexico,
but much larger--6-7,000 people, still without water
or electricity after over 9 years there. We visited
two homes, leaving bags of food we had bought
en-route. Perhaps they'll use it, perhaps they'll
sell it, but poor is poor.

Soweto didn't have water or electricity to the homes
before Mandela's release and presidency, either, but
they lived next to and worked at the power plant that
proved service to white Johannesburg.

It is easy to tsk, tsk and say what an ugly government
that was, but the story is legion, from my country's
removal of native americans, the enforcement of
segregation, to the poor treatment of indigeneous
peoples in other places like Australia.

The hope comes from the story of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, put together by Mandela and
Tutu, which sought truth in return for forgiveness and
reconciliation, rather than revenge. It worked, and
while much work remains to be done here to bring about
racial equality, the work of this commission shows
another path to peace that is much more stable than
the misuse of one's power.

A fine book to read about all of this is Nelson
Mandela's biography, "Long Walk to Freedom". It is
well worth your time.

Tomorrow--Pilanesburg National Park!

JP

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