Sunday, March 9, 2008

South Afrika: What the Fuck Have I Learned?

It’s very very hard to sum up all that I’ve learned in one essay, especially just as I feel like I’m starting to realize all that I’ve learned. In many ways, everything I’ve learned has been covered in class. I’ve learned a lot about poverty, about AIDS, about white supremacy. I’ve learned about my role as an American in another country. Most importantly, I’ve learned about how I react to certain situations, I’ve learned how I shut down, how I act cowardly, how when the going gets rough, I continually yearn for some kind of comfort. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been reading so much about Buddhist thought, but the way in which human beings react, over and over again, with such regularity, seems to be the most important epiphany of all. White people in South Africa react to the daily news by building gates around their homes, hoarding their wealth, terrified that black people will come to their homes, stick their guns in their mouths and steal everything they own. The Africans have reacted to their situation in surprising ways. They are open to strangers, as we’ve discussed. Sume, the principal at my school, has reacted to her circumstances by building libraries, and computer labs, painting her school a brilliant orange, and courting tourist dollars from places as far away as Germany.

But it isn’t fair to Sume that she should have to react like this, literally picking the bones thrown to her by the whites. Sometimes I think she should be angry, more angry than she is. Sometimes I think if all the Africans in South Africa were really truly educated like the whites, they would be just as angry as the whites are about losing their jobs to black people. Economics in South Africa operate in incredibly unfair ways by eradicating the voices of the poor, the voices of the uneducated. For weeks here, I would walk around turning over the same tired phrase in my head; “South Africa; land of contrasts.” But it’s true! This is a land of contrasts. The gulf between the rich and the poor is crazier than the gulf in America, or at least more visible. The fact that 13% of the people control 87% of the wealth is staggering. As Frantz Fanon said, in the colonial state “the economic structure is also the superstructure. The ends are the same. You are rich because you are white and you are white because you are rich.” The fact that Fanon has been unfortunately pushed to the fringes of academia, even in liberal liberal Seattle, illustrates just how uncomfortable most white people are with antagonizing their own socioeconomic position.

And I have no idea what the answer is. I keep on thinking about how the Nordic states use progressive taxes to spread the wealth around. The idea would be to charge a rich person a few thousand rand for a speeding ticket, while charging a poorer person only a few rand. But, as the director of the Steve Biko Foundation pointed out to me, the Nordic states have homogenous populations, and it’s much easier to convince people to give money to other people who look the same as them, who haven’t been so viciously otherized.

I just got back from Cape Town two days ago, and I’d like to bring Cape Town into this essay. Cape Town is the tourist face of South Africa, and what a face. Cape Town beckoned me for six days, beckoned me to shop, eat, hike, and try to fill up my brain with the prettiest images possible. And sometimes I feel like that’s what traveling has become to many; trying to fill up your own mental reserve with the prettiest pictures, the best smells, the most comfortable things. And here we all go around trying to capture everything on our cameras so we can give a detailed narrative slide show to our friends back home, full of inflection, pointing out all the pretty things we’ve seen. And the funniest thing, to me, is that we’re all taking the exact same pictures of the exact same things. Table Mountain. The Waterfront. The Beaches. We all go to the exact same places, but stand in different angles, attempting to really capture the space we’re in.

So a lot of this trip I’ve spent analyzing tourism in South Africa. Where do tourist dollars go? How does the government present itself to tourists? How do tourists learn about apartheid? How do they learn about poverty? Sometimes I feel very cynical about the tourism industry here. I feel like tourists come here to go on safaris, but don’t venture into the townships except on highly sheltered tours. In one of the essays I wrote on my blog, I made a satirical joke about creating a special Oprah package for all the thick-skinned strong-gutted tourists. Think you can handle the real world? Here, hold my baby, feel my warts, smell my garbage. But I guess this kind of poverty tourism doesn’t really go well with the whole safari theme.

I’m not even beginning to cover all that I’ve learned on this trip, so here I’ll try to sum up some more epiphanies. I’ve learned that to be a teacher in South Africa, especially an American teacher, you have to be tough or the kids will walk all over you. This was hard for me to learn. I wanted the students to respect me because I was awesome, not because Sume told them they had to. But, in the end, I felt more and more like a clueless hippie loser and less and less like the celebrity teachers I’d idolized in movies, like Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act, and Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson. No no no, you can only be friends with the students after you’ve earned their respect, and they will only respect you if you act strong and powerful. It’s all an act, really, it’s all theatre, but I think I’m learning how to fake it.

My goal was to create a safe space where the students at Charles Duna could discuss their hopes and fears, and analyze their own cultures in an atmosphere that encouraged creative risk and honesty. I think, in many ways, I have succeeded. The students have broken down barriers between each other, and I have pushed them to deconstruct their own creative interpretations of township life by constantly interrupting their skits and asking them “why?” Why does the mother refuse to reveal her AIDS status? Why does the boyfriend refuse to wear a condom? Often, the students have no idea why. They are so young, and they are acting out the perceptions of township life from a young perspective. But in many ways, they are wiser than I. One boy, Msimalelo, I will openly admit, is more comfortable with his sexual orientation (at age 11!) than I am. He is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and I will never forget him. I hope to send him through college, but not through a patronizing organization like Chirtian Children’s Network.

What have I learned about study abroad programs? I think we’ve all learned that groups continually fall apart, then come together, then fall apart again. I think the secret is letting yourself have all the emotional reactions you need, and to give yourself time to process things. I’ve been getting better at that.
Of course, I’m proud of our group. While we’re not always honest with each other, we always try to be. I’ve been getting better at getting pissed off at people, which is a weird skill to acquire.

I have no idea how this program will affect my life. I think I’ve made some life long friends, so hopefully I won’t get sucked into my daily routine in Seattle and lose contact with all of them. I’m sure I won’t. I also hope that I don’t hate white people when I get back home, but I think I will just a little bit. I’m going to feel angry at my parents for being overprotective all over again. But I went bungee jumping! I’ll tell them, and they’ll say “yeah right, ok, you gave into peer pressure. Get good grades.” And I’ll tell them, “But I’ve changed, I’m not as fearful anymore!” and they’ll say, “fear is there for a reason. Fear protects you.” I don’t think they’ll use that language, but they will definitely say something to that effect.

I guess I hope, more than anything in the whole wide world, that I don’t listen to them, and instead continue to listen to the very healthy, sometimes anarchistic voice that says, “go there, do this, try that.” If anything, living here has helped this voice to grow a bit stronger. For that, I am incredibly thankful.

3 comments:

Jen said...

Hey - I'm an econ grad student who is moving to SA for research. I just found your blog today and wanted to respond to some of the points you make. I wrote a long email but, since I've got no where to send it, I'll post the main points. I had myriad other questions for you though if you don't mind answering them.

I suspect that you already know this but your writing is great. And you make a lot of really good, reflective points in the blog. There are two in particular that I want to respond to...

1. You wrote: "Sometimes I think if all the Africans in South Africa were really truly educated like the whites, they would be just as angry as the whites are about losing their jobs to black people."
I think you mean the Africans would be as angry as whites about the whole raw deal, grand plan. I just want to clarify because when I first read the line I thought you were referring to the affirmative action program and BEE (black economic empowerment). And this is a standard anti-aff action argument - recently used in the US by none other than Clarence Thomas - that race based aff action is bad for all races. I think the argument is absurd but there you go. I also do think Africans are pretty pissed about the whole thing...not all of them all the time though. But that is why Mandela and Zuma and Biko are so revered. They were "the struggle" that touched everyone be it through fear or violence. And they were Marxist revolutionaries - that takes anger - all for socialist style wealth redistribution. That's why you heard people calling each other "comrade" in that boring meeting you went to.

Have you read Rian Malan's My Traitor's Heart...it is one of the best and most horrifying books I've ever read. I'd really like to hear what you think of it.

2. You talked in a couple of places about a steep progressive tax. I am not interested in a Nordic style plan - theirs is income tax based as far as I know. But something like the example you use of traffic tickets. In some ways this would be extremely problematic. It can't solely be based on race because there are poor whites - and racial classification has caused some historical problems. So there would need to be some indication of income on the driving license and other forms of id. A possibility is the LSM (http://archive.saarf.co.za/lsms.htm) but then you'd need to survey/classify the whole population and make sure no one is lying *and* do the survey more or less constantly.

Of course the tax could be on income, but South Africa has a progressive tax system in place that ranges between 18% (individual income up to R74,000) and 40% (individual income greater than R270,000) as far as I know which is substantial. I think the Biko foundation guy had at least part of it right. Definitely a lot of wealthy people would respond poorly if taxes went up from 40%. There is something about paying nearly 50% of income in taxes that probably almost anyone would be unhappy with. That stands beyond racial resentment I think. In Sweden tax is about 50% for everyone and up to 60%; obviously problematic in a place where some people are only making R30 per day. The other thing is that a lot of whites are leaving...something that will probably happen more when Zuma comes into office. Because of apartheid most businesses are white-owned and the government doesn't want them to move. So the government has limited flexibility.
There are other potential income tax changes though so it is something to look at. The reason the "flat tax" items - things like grocery taxes or traffic tickets - is interesting is because those taxes are actually regressive. But I can't come up with some way of changing the "tax" aspect of that with no way of classifying people though.

So there you go. Some of it might be interesting. Most of it is probably just too damn long.

kydinseattle said...

bungee jumping at bloukrans. one of the most amazing moments of my life!

i agree that cape town is very much a tourist town where visitors can take all the same pretty pictures but never see the truth or history. however, i lived there while at UCT for six months and think that i got to see the other side of the country as well. (although i did take almost all those same pretty picture as well!)

this can be done by:
volunteering in the townships, visiting the district six museum and robben island, traveling to and staying in a colored settlement like ocean view (certainly not the picturesque place that such a name evokes), visiting shebeens and bars outside of the clubs found on long street and camps bay, and i think most importantly just talking to people who have lived in south africa. i learned a lot from my taxi drivers (when they weren't trying to grope me and ripping me off). i found that people were always more than willing to talk about their experiences, what had changed, what remained the same, and i think it gave me a much richer picture than what i learned in my history of south africa class.

i think a travel experience is what you make of it no matter where you are. it you are only going for a week to club and safari, that is all you will come away with. those are the same people who travel to tropical islands and then sit by the pool all day. but if travelers take time and effort to experience more, than they will come away with so much more.

glad you got to experience the beauty that is ZA!

Julia N. said...

i can't tell you how much i've enjoyed pouring over your blog the past few months. soak it all up for the remainder of your time, and don't worry too much about how you've changed or what you've learned, it will gradually reveal itself once you have left. i am in seattle until saturday the 22nd and can't wait to cuddle.

love,
JMN