Interesting Titles About South Africa!

Having now been to South Africa, I must admit that my desire to know even more has been fueled. As such, I have been searching online book sites for books to add to my ever-growing list of "must reads". I haven't read any of the titles that I am suggesting here but I look forward to checking them off as I read them. If anyone has read any of these titles, and could give a good review, I'd be happy to receive it. Thanks.

Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa - Alister Sparks

Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa - Antjie Krog

Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country - Gillian Slovo

If This Be Treason - Helen Joseph

Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela

M.K. Gandhi: An Indian Patriot in South Africa (Reprint, 1909) - Joseph J. Doke

No Future Without Forgiveness - Desmond Tutu

Rivonia's Children: Three Families and the Price of Freedom in South Africa (The Slovos/Bernsteins) - Glenn Frankel

The Mind of South Africa: Story of the Rise and Fall of Apartheid - Alister Sparks

Tomorrow is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Road to Change - Alister Sparks

So, How was South Africa?

First, let me say that I regret some of the typos in these posts and fully acknowledge that additional editing work is necessary. Students, don't do as I did. Double check your spelling. Also, while this will be the last official post on this blog, I will maintain the site for some time and respond to any questions as they might be posed.

With that said, how was South Africa? Is it truly a new country? This is a hard question to answer. South Africa, a physical paradise on earth, is certainly much more varied and unique on the continent of Africa than I had originally thought and certainly provides one with a different sense of what Africa is. It is not a black country nor is it white, Indian or colored. It is not Christian, Hindu, Jewish and/or Muslim, etc. It is all of these things as most South Africans have had family living there for over six and/or seven generations. As like the United States, it is a country of both indigenous and immigrant groups and is a product of the entreprenurial spirit brought by the polyglot peoples that developed it. While the hope and sincere interest in a better, more democratic tomorrow is there, and, indeed, people of color are moving into the upper middle class socioeconomic brackets and the country as a whole is celebrating unprecedented economic growth fueled by its mineral wealth, technology, and tourism, crime and HIV infection rates must be abated. Gender equality is also necessary as a large percentage of those raising the next generation of South African leaders are single parent, lower-income females. Modern immigration into South Africa, from other parts of Africa, and the fear this brings, is also fostering challenges.

Although I personally did not experience any violence in-country and South Africans, whom I met, were unabashedly friendly, relaxed and genuine, one senses a palpable tension over growing insecurity. As someone told me, South Africa is both a first world and third world country wrapped into one. Until South Africa can reduce its unemployment rate, ensure equal educational opportunity for all and develop confidence/self-esteem in all of its people, so long denied to a vast of number of its citizens during Apartheid, break-ins, carjackings, kidnappings, and muggings will continue. How much government intervention and social engineering versus the individual initiative in taking advantage of existing opportunities that will be necessary to improve South Africa's lot will, necessarily, be a discussion for some time to come. This is a tall order - it has been over 40 years since the American Civil Rights Movement, and, yet, the United States still has many of these same issues with which to deal albeit perhaps on a slightly different scale. The United States has made progress.

However, given the amazing strides towards true democratization made in South Africa, in just 14 years, South Africans are certainly up to solving these challenges. The positive pressure placed on South Africa, due to its upcoming hosting of the 2010 World Soccer Cup, can only help motivate its people to continue to look at solving these issues. Indeed, South Africans are very much aware of this. Given what has already been accomplished in 14 years, since the end of Apartheid, perhaps, soon, the United States will be looking at South Africa to guide it through its socioeconomic dilemmas.

Some Thoughts on School Visitations

In South Africa, I was fortunate to visit with two principals and schools at some length. While both schools were in formerly designated townships, one school was Indian in the Phoenix settlement outside of Durban and the other was a formerly colored school outside of Cape Town in Mitchell’s Plain. One was elementary and the other secondary. Both are now in the process of integration.

While neither is attracting a white minority, as both schools are still comprised of those individuals of lower socio-economic status and whites tend to be situated in middle class suburbs as opposed to former townships, both are attracting students from the former black townships. This is, of course, challenging to the administration in both schools as the school leaders must engender to incorporate all parents into the school decision-making process and to help establish a safe and culturally unbiased community for all learners. Indeed, in the Mitchell’s Plain School, outside Cape Town, much effort has been exerted in explaining Xhosa machismo culture to its Muslim constituency and visa versa. In Phoenix as well, the principal has developed one school community by focusing on the commonalities between the majority Hindu student population and the minority Zulu student body by citing examples of commonality such as rights of passage – birth, marriage, death, etc. Both schools have also invested time and energy in teacher training, exposing their educators to their own internal biases. The school in Mitchell’s Plain, in particular, was integrated, largely at the bequest of the principal, prior to the end of Apartheid, and has been a leader in integration for some time. As a result, Nelson Mandela has visited the school on several occasions. The school outside Durban has also been held up as a model of reform. The township schools I visited were also led, in general, by school leaders who had been university student activists during the struggle to end Apartheid and come from the communities they now lead. Organizations such as CSVR, Love Life, and the Institute of Justice also sometimes provide training to school educators through diversity circles and other forms of discussion.

While the elementary school does not, directly, deal with gang activity, such activity is a major problem in the former townships and for the secondary school outside of Cape Town. This is not very different, in reality, from the challenges faced by inner-city educators in the United States. Alcoholism, drug-addiction (“Tik”), and broken families are fueling gang activity in South Africa as is a 40% unemployment rate. While the gang names in South Africa might be different, be they “The Americans” or “The JFKs” in South Africa or the Bloods and/or Cripps in the United States, a growing number of males of color, in particular, are in prison. In Mitchell’s Plain, the principal estimates that approximately 30% of the student body is involved in petty gang activity often graduating to more violent crime after graduation. This is not an extraordinary figure if one considers that approximately 80% of school graduates are either unemployed and/or outside of tertiary education immediately after graduation. Only 1% of students attend college immediately after high school but a larger number of students do eventually attend college as more mature adults. The exact number of students who eventually matriculate at university is unknown. HIV infection rates also remain high as young females often trade unprotected sex for money. HIV is also viewed as a “black disease” and, as such, is not viewed with the same urgency by all South Africans.

Schools in the townships are overcrowded. It is not unusual to find classes of 40 to 45 students. The national government has established a 35 students per one teacher policy. This is partially accounting for these large class sizes. When the ratio becomes smaller, as the national government pays teacher salaries, schools must forfeit a teacher thereby actually increasing class size. More affluent schools, such as former Model C schools (i.e. white schools), however, often have large professional networks, PTOs, and personal endowments that allows them more flexibility in paying for extra teaching staff out of their discretionary funding. This reduces class size.

Former Model C schools do fund tuitions for students in financial need from the former townships but the need is so very great. Principals in South Africa, especially in township areas, are therefore expected to complete both administrative duties as well as teaching duties to make up for the shortage in teaching staff. This stretches principals thin in South Africa. Further complicating the problem is teacher migration out of South Africa. Each year, many South African educators leave for other British Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and/or New Zealand where credentials are recognized, salaries and benefits greater. Crime surges are also causing a general exodus of all South Africans of means to other parts of the world. Indeed, the recent national public servant strike, including teachers, in South Africa goes some way in showing the frustration that teachers and others are feeling over working conditions.

I also believe there to be a general malaise in the discovery that a multiethnic participatory government/ANC dominated government may have as many issues with corruption and personal aggrandizement as did the Apartheid era government. Indeed, I heard several individuals mention the family connections between President Mbeki of South Africa and President Mugabe of Zimbabwe as, I believe, Mugabe is married to Mbeki’s cousin.

It is, however, worth noting though, at the same time, that the actual transition to democracy 14 years ago was, largely, bloodless and devoid of racial retribution. Whie some say that the Truth and Reconciliation Trials only scratched the surface of simmering racial tensions and were mostly one sided in that they were interested in the prosecution of whites responsible for black/colored oppression as opposed to an equal investigation of black/colored on white crime, in the least, it did help South Africa onwards and away from the more violent political revolutions so common in African history. As a former student leader, one of the principals of the two schools visited still wrestles with their own demons and struggles to forgive especially as they continue to see inequities in educational opportunities for children.

Infrastructure is also in need of improvement. Schools only receive a yearly budget of 20,000 U.S. dollars equivalent. This means that routine maintenance neglected can quickly become much more problematic. Crime and vandalism further fuels this problem and it is not uncommon for there to be several security gates around schools and additional steel frames around technology labs. The SA government is aware of 14 areas of critical need which does include Mitchell’s Plain and has been assisting in the building of new auditorium and building space. This is needed as there is a definite differential between sporting facilities at former Model C schools and those in former townships. From my observations, it appears that schools in townships were last updated in the early 1980s. Former Model C schools, again, rely on private endowments to maintain facilities and, as such, such schools still have an advantage in this area even though national funding for all schools has been equalized and some former township schools are actually receiving additional hardship stipends. Former Model C schools also can charge more for books/uniforms than can former township schools. The principal in Mitchell’s Plain has also maintained a 24 hour live-in property custodian and has dogs patrolling the school property after hours. There has not been a break-in at the school for several years.

Both principals are open to local school-based management schemes. Indeed, both cited that they enjoyed this aspect of their job but that it was also one of their most consuming and frustrating challenges. Principals in former townships must engender leadership capabilities in their parent communities but parents, raised during Apartheid and not given a voice, are now expected to lead collaboratively without having first the confidence or the money to fund projects. The Western Cape Board of Education is also attempting to assist in this endeavor by providing copies of Michael Fullan’s book Leading in a Time of Change to it’s principals as a means by which principals can begin to discuss/dialogue on leadership issues in a time of local school control and a growing outcomes based assessment protocol in South Africa. Indeed, both principals acted as unofficial mentors to more junior principals. The national Department of Education is also attempting to foster both a national as well as continental identity in its student population.

While outcomes based assessment is growing in popularity within South African educational circles, its reach has not extended to the level that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has in the United States. Principals therefore have at least some flexibility in reassigning even secondary school teachers to other discipline areas, as needed and as changes in national curriculum are mandated. Teachers seem to have accepted these changes with aplomb and turnover in both schools is low according to principals. I believe this to be the result of the open and natural leadership style of both principals who encourage community participation in decision making and priority setting. Teachers in both schools are encouraged to voice opinions on educational matters and there is general interest in making education less lecture-based and more exploratory in nature.

Historical Documents Related to Apartheid Available to All

Since I had a late departure flight from South Africa home on Monday, I decided to try to take advantage of the extra time by visiting the Historical Documents Collection of the William Cullen Library of the University of Witswatersrand outside of Johannesburg. While the collection is scant on documents related to the state position on Apartheid, as these are housed at the National Archives of South Africa, the collection is a goldmine in terms of primary source materials from the anti-Apartheid perspective. While I remain an avid supporter of using the Holocaust as a platform by which to teach global human rights issues, in part due to the widespread availability of documentation left by the perpetrators of evil themselves, it is important to note that almost an equal amount of primary source material is available on Apartheid-era South Africa.

Indeed, Ms. Pickover, the Director/Head Librarian at the Collection often finds herself assisting international researchers as they pick their way through the collections. Yet, at the same time, foreign K-12 educators do not seem to avail themselves of these materials with equal interest. While not completely analogous, would it not be wise to offer American high school students a course in comparative human/civil rights issues by looking at the American Civil Rights Movement, the movement to end Apartheid in South Africa, the Holocaust, Darfur, etc.? In this way, the focus would be on what unites humankind rather than what makes various subgroups different and/or subject to ridicule.

Although I had thought that I had ample time to review the collections, my five hours at the center went rather quickly. Therefore, I needed the assistance of Ms. Pickover and her staff to help me to concentrate my efforts on key documents/aspects of the struggle to end Apartheid. As such, it is these documents that I have brought back to the United States and hope to use with my students in developing global human rights awareness.

I found some extremely interesting gems in terms of primary source documentation. The Center, for instance, has an original published copy of the 1955 Freedom Charter. You may recall that this was one of the first unified attempts, on the part of democratic alliances, to get the National Party led government to fall back on segregationist policies. You may also recall that most signatories to the Freedom Charter, the likes of Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo (believed to have written the Charter), Ruth First, Helen Joseph, Walter Sisulu, etc, were brought up on treason charges during the treason trials of the 50s/60s. The Center maintains the court records from some of these trials as well as the court decisions that all found that there was not a definitive link to the passages within the Freedom Charter and an overt call for the overthrow of the Apartheid government. Again, however, this did not end the government's attempts to rearrest anti-Apartheid supporters on other charges and, as such, many supporters of democracy were forced into exile, yet others indeed were imprisoned on other charges, and or assassinated domestically and/or overseas (Ruth First) by the South African secret police.

The Center also maintains priceless documents related to Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress (ANC), and the court records from the trial that ultimately led to what would have been Mandela's lifelong sentence in prison had it not been for the outcry against Apartheid that could not, ultimately, be silenced. After the treason trials, Mandela continued to support and co-lead the ANC, but clandestinely, on a farm in rural Rivonia. Mandela was acting as the farm gardener. Ultimately discovered and raided by the South African police in the early 1960s, most of the defendents arrested on the farm, including Mandela, were indeed convicted on treason charges and sentenced to decades in prison. The Center maintains Mandela's personal notes for his lawyers, his notes on why he did not accept the court's right to charge him on charges of treason, as well as his final statement if, indeed, the courts had sentenced him to death. Although, under Apartheid, treason could result in a death sentence in South Africa, currently, there is no death penalty.

The Center also maintains the personal edits of human/womens rights advocates such as Helen Joseph, whom I believe is only one of a few white people - along with Joe Slovo - to have been buried in Soweto, as well as the correspondence of human rights advocate Ms. Susman while she served in the South African parliament. As such, one can truly get a sense of the personal impact of Apartheid on the lives of ordinary South Africans as they read the original letters to Ms. Susman, from the 1970s - 1990, and her responses, on issues ranging from forced removals and/or detentions. Included in the Susman collection, one can also find reports filed by the Congresswoman as she visited townships and/or informal settlements. Recently, the South African Jewish Museum had an exhibit on this fascinating freedom fighter.

The last documents which I had time to review included those related to the 1980s Delmas trial. In this trial, the Apartheid era government tried to assert that certain members of the United Democratic Front (UDF) - a coalition of Anti-Apartheid organizations - had not only ties to Communism but that it actively was attempting to incite revolution in townships, across the nation, like that of Soweto. In these research boxes, one can see stacks of witness testimony supporting the defendents, as well as "evidence" provided by the state witness on matters related to Communism, and individual factfinding reports on UDF activity in various cities across the country. Ultimately, the accused were found guilty. However, this trial, as well as events such as the 1976 Soweto Uprising against Afrikaans instruction in schools and the government reaction to this uprising, would continue to place increasing international pressure on the South African government to relax its discriminatory policies.

As for the criteria which determined to which " race" one belonged - i.e. white, other white, honorary white (Japanese), Asian, colored, black, Indian etc. etc., I am still confused but know that, at times, the classification was influenced by economics as in the case of the Japanese, noted as white, as opposed to Chinese, noted as Asian. Religion also played a part if Hindu and/or Muslim. As an aside, today, South Africa has a healthy trade arrangement with China. It was also not uncommon for certain family members to be classified as white and others as colored, etc. and, with the group areas resettlement act, this resulted in the breakup of families. Several individuals also told me about the "pencil/pen test" where one was considered white if the pen fell out of the hair but of color if the pen remained.

All Roads Lead to Rhodes

THE CAPE PENINSULA: ALL ROADS LEAD TO RHODES

On Saturday, July 28^th, despite continued dreary weather, I decided to drive down the Cape Peninsula as this was the last full day I had in this extremely interesting country. Although the weather could have been better, I had a very knowledgeable guide and driver in the form of John Bydell. A life-long resident of nearby Athlone, an area that, under Apartheid, was designated as a community only for coloreds, Mr. Bydell continues to raise his daughters in the community in which he grew up. As such, John knew the many ins/outs of the Cape Peninsula and I enjoyed myself immensely driving down this beautiful stretch of oceanfront land. Indeed, while, unfortunately, some beaches had been off-limits to John growing up, in a way, this provided him and his friends with an opportunity to discover other lesser-known spots of beauty. Today, John uses this knowledge and his love for local history well by taking tourists around the cape in a way most unfamiliar to those visitors opting instead to take prescribed tour buses.

At the base of the Eastern side of Table Mountain, and commanding superb views of the Cape Flats, the area to which coloreds, Indians, and others were moved during Apartheid, lies the Rhodes Memorial; a homage to Cecil John Rhodes who had been a one-time prime minister of the Cape Colony, founder of De Beers Diamond Mines, perhaps the instigator of the second Anglo-Boer War, benefactor of Kirstenbosch Gardens and the Rhodes Scholarship (Oxford), cotton, fruit/wine farmer, nation builder, and transportation/telegraph industrialist. It is a classically styled memorial consisting of eight bronze lions and is quite imposing amidst some superb fur/pine trees.

Cecil Rhodes came to South Africa in the 1870s, from England, because of Tuberculosis and general poor health. He initially joined his brother who had come to South Africa a few years earlier to start a cotton farm. It was not long, however, that Cecil was also managing some small diamond mine claims held by his brother in Kimberley. Having made some shrewd investments, Cecil Rhodes was soon able to acquire his own diamond interests and incorporated his various holdings under the name of De Beers who was the original owner of the claims acquired by Rhodes. In time, Rhodes would work with other diamond magnets, such as Barney Barnato, in regulating the prices of diamond sales. From these earnings, Rhodes would have commissioned the building of his Cape residence – Groote Schuur – which he later bequeathed to South Africa as the home for a succession of prime ministers and would become interested in invigorating the wine/fruit preserve industry on farms, like Boschendal, which reside in the now famous wine producing region outside of Cape Town.

Rhodes supported trade with the Mtebele (sp?) in the area of today’s Zimbabwe. In time, Rhodes was able to gain large land concessions from the Mtebele chief in exchange for a nominal amount of trinkets and provisions in kind. As land concessions grew and white pioneers settled in this rich mining and agricultural area, Mtebele land was renamed Rhodesia in Rhode’s honor. Today, this is the nation of Zimbabwe.

As prime minister, Rhodes would take South Africa into the then modern world by finishing the train line from Cape Town to Johannesburg as well as having telegraph lines to the outside world put in place. Unfortunately, Rhodes would have to step down after he was implicated in the Jameson’s Raid fiasco in the Transvaal when Jameson, Rhodes doctor/friend, attempted and failed to overthrow Paul Kruger, the Afrikaner Prime Minister of the Free State, in an attempt to have the Free State fall into line over diamonds/gold policy with the British controlled Cape Province. This would happen, of course, after the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899/1901.

After resigning and in a bid to arrest his now inflamed Tuberculosis, Rhodes retreated to a small cottage in Saint James, which lies just outside of Kalk Bay and Simon’s Town, today, the home of the South African Navy. Weakened from the stress related to a criminal case involving the forging of his name on checks issued by Princess Radziwill of Poland, Rhodes died at the cottage after suffering from a heart attack. While Princess Radziwill claimed to have been Rhodes’ mistress, this nor theories that Rhodes was homosexual have been substantiated. Rhodes died, unmarried, in 1902 uttering “So much to do…so little time.” Although President Mugabe of Zimbabwe continues to threaten that Rhode’s grave will be removed from Zimbabwe, Rhodes remains buried in that country alongside his friend, Dr. Jameson.

Today, the cottage and bed in which Rhodes passed are open for viewing by the public. The current caretakers/curators, Mr. Gibbs, and his wife were far more than gracious in answering my questions on all matters Rhodes. Mrs. Gibbs, in fact, is descended from some of the first white settlers to Rhodesia who had first tried their luck on the Pampas of Argentina. Being a history fanatic, such as myself, Mr. Gibbs and I also had a very nice conversation on the similarities of immigration in both the United States and South Africa. One interesting side note to history offered by Mr. Gibbs was that, during the siege of Kimberley, during the second Anglo-Boer War, Rhodes too had been trapped by the Afrikaners. However, due to the ingenuity of an American engineer at De Beers, Mr. Lampen (sp?), a canon was developed that allowed Kimberley and the diamond mines to withstand the siege.

Following this foray into South African history, the rest of my tour of the Cape Point was rather leisurely as I browsed antique shops and ate seafood in Kalk Bay, took photographs of the penguin colony on Boulders Beach, saw the actual Cape point where the cold ocean current of the Atlantic Ocean meets the warm ocean current of the Indian Ocean, and almost ran over a family of wild baboons in Kommetjie.

My next to last post will involve my reflections on having visited with administrators of a high school in a former township. In preview, there are actually a lot of similar challenges for public educators in both the United States and South Africa.

The Jewish Diaspora in South Africa

THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DIASPORA IN SOUTH AFRICA

As Shea Albert, Director of the South African Museum stated to me yesterday, the South African Jewish Museum is, at its heart, a museum of migration to which anyone who has ever thought of seeking a better life elsewhere can relate. Indeed, this superb museum of immigration very much reminds me of institutions of historical memory, in New York City, such as the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and/or Ellis Island as all of these centers highlight the precedents and patterns of global migration. Just as Greeks, Italians, Poles, Irish, Chinese, Germans, and many others, have been drawn to live their lives in economically prosperous nations such as Canada, the United States, Australia, and/or New Zealand, Jews, largely from a Central and Eastern European Ashkenazi background, were drawn to South Africa for the opportunities for a better life that it presented during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

While there were a few Jews on record as being present in the Cape Colony during the period of Dutch rule, given the Dutch government’s ban on any religion other than Dutch Reformist, these Jewish immigrants soon became religious converts to Christianity. Other European Jews were therefore not enticed to journey to the colony. This changed after the takeover of the colony by the British, during the 1700s, which saw an increase in the number of British and German Jews entering what would one day become the Republic of South Africa.

The South African Jewish Museum is, in fact, housed around the oldest Synagogue in the country which was built in 1863. The synagogue was constructed around the Company Gardens, which acts very much like the village green in Cape Town, and this suggests that the Jewish community was accepted culturally from the start of its growth. According to Ms. Albert, in South Africa, intolerance has been largely centered on race rather than religion and, indeed, Cape Town would see its first Jewish mayor, Lieberman, as early as 1904, and South Africa, by the late 1890s, would witness a growing number of Jewish prospectors selling provisions in-country to those panning for diamonds and gold in places such as Kimberley and the area around what would become Johannesburg. Soon, some of these prospectors would invest in mines themselves. Barney Barnato and Sammy Marks, for instance, both Jewish immigrants, would sit alongside that of Cecil John Rhodes as the country’s first “randlords”.

As the 1800s progressed, South Africa saw the largest number of Jews coming from Lithuania and/or Latvia as religious pogroms against Jews in this part of the former Russian Empire were both bloody and widespread. The parents of famed South African Novelist Nadine Gordimer, for instance, came from Lithuania. Usually, would-be Lithuanian immigrants would travel to England and stay at the Jewish Temporary Shelter in London. As passage from England to South Africa was cheaper than that to the United States, some Jewish people took this option. Others, only knowing Yiddish, came by mistake thinking that they had reached America. There is an exhibit in the museum honoring both Sammy Marks, for financially sponsoring the emigration of Lithuanian Jews willing to do manual labor, as well as those individuals who returned to Lithuania/Russia to escort Jewish children, orphaned by the pogroms, to South Africa. Also of interest is the recreation of the Lithuanian village lived in by the Israeli architect’s grandfather.

The vast majority of the Jewish community, like that of other whites, is solidly lower to upper middle class. At its height, the community only numbered around 120,000 and, today, numbers even less at around 80,000. As like other South Africans of means, the rest have migrated during/after Apartheid for career opportunities abroad. There is also a rather small Holocaust survivors group; the members of which started arriving in South Africa largely from the 1950s to 1970s. Most Jewish South Africans, however, have no direct connection to the Holocaust as Jewish immigration to South Africa was an earlier phenomena and halted during the Second World War. In most cases, not being cognizant of South Africa’s racial tensions, Holocaust survivors, like those elsewhere, often came to South Africa because of family connections.

The museum honors those that stood up to the oppression of Apartheid. While, as a group, South African Jews were not unified against Apartheid, of those whites who signed the Freedom Charter, in the 1950s, and who were later tried on charges of treason, ironically in the main synagogue of Pretoria, half in the first trial and most during the second trial were Jewish. (Both the prosecuting and defending lawyers were also Jewish.) Among this group of those tried include activists Joe Slovo and his first wife Ruth First who was later be assassinated by the secret police force of Apartheid era South Africa. There is also a movie frequently shown called “Mandela and the Jews of South Africa” which profiles Mandela’s connections with prominent Jews both in/out of the African National Congress during the time of Apartheid. The movie looks at the role, for instance, played by Helen Susman, who is the longest serving member in South Africa’s parliament, in the struggle to end Apartheid, and her friendship with Mandela. Mandela officially opened the South African Jewish Museum in 2000.

THE HOLOCAUST CENTRE OF CAPE TOWN

Before visiting the South African Jewish Museum, I was fortunate to have met with Education Director Marlene Silbert. Herself a former vice-principal and anti-Apartheid activist, having even going as far as to hide people from the South African police, Ms. Silbert has made a conscious effort to integrate the history of the Holocaust with that of Apartheid as a means by which to look at the Holocaust and Apartheid as human rights travesties that have relevance and meaning for all people regardless of their ethnic, national, and/or religious backgrounds. If, as the human race, we are ever to live peacefully with one another, our students must learn to look at these evil transgressions of human rights in a global sense.

While the Holocaust and Apartheid are not completely analogous, the Nationalist Party in South Africa, which was largely of conservative Afrikaner base, did support Germany in many matters. This group had not forgotten its prior difficulties with the British, and the two Anglo-Boer Wars (1700s/1899), and, as such, looked at Germany with sympathy as tensions between it and Great Britain intensified during the 1930s.

Indeed, it was this ultra-right wing group of South African Nazi sympathizers, the Grey Shirts, who pressured the South African government to limit Jewish immigration to South Africa as the 30s progressed. For example, as with the refugee ship the St. Louis, and the refusal of the US government to let it dock, so too was “The Stuttgart” denied entry into South Africa. Curiously, however, the South African government, in agreement with the Free Polish government in exile in London, the Soviet Union (occupying one part of Poland -as was Germany), and Great Britain, allowed 500 Polish children from Soviet-occupied Poland to come to South Africa as part of a small “kinder (Children’s) transport” like the much larger one implemented in Britain. These children, a mixture of both Christians and Jews, were housed in the Polish Orphans Home in Oudtshoorn, South Africa which was known as “Little Jerusalem” and/or “Jerusalem in Africa” for its large Jewish community prior to the war. Many of these children later settled in South Africa.

Nonetheless, in 1948, the Nationalists came to power in South Africa, under President Verwoerd, and Apartheid legislation was enacted that was similar to the discriminative Nuremberg laws that had been instituted against European Jews, by the Nazis, during the Holocaust. Race (and the false belief that race denoted intelligence) theory, a pseudo-science also called Eugenics and developed in the United States and Germany at the turn of the 20^th century, was also embraced by the Nationalist Party in its bid to separate white, colored, and black South Africans into a definitive pecking order.

The museum contains photographs and letters sent from desperate relatives to loved ones lucky to have immigrated to South Africa before Nazi domination of Europe. It also contains the I.D. photographs of Jews from the town of Bedzin, Poland, who had been deported to the death camps. On a touching but sad note, a visiting survivor, now living in Johannesburg, saw the identification photographs of his family in this collection, for the first time in 60 years, as these were the only photos having ever been taken of his family. As stated in a previous post, survivors ended up in South Africa because, after the war, often having no immediate family left alive in Europe, they were sponsored by relatives in Africa. Ms. Silbert’s parents, for example, sponsored a few distant cousins, lucky enough to survive, through the South African citizenship process. Others, having been taken in as children by Britain, during the war, came to South Africa as working adults and through the country’s ties with Britain as a British colony. Still other survivors came simply because someone with whom they had talked had said that South Africa was a land of opportunity. Having a Greek population in place prior to the war, there are also a number of Holocaust survivors, in South Africa, originally from Rhodes Island. Some survivors temporarily relocated to the Belgian Congo (Zaire), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), etc. only to move again to South Africa during the independence struggles in these other countries.

The museum does not just focus on the past as a form of memorial only. By using artifacts of both concentration camps as well as mine worker hostels in South Africa during Apartheid, and through diversity instruction, the Centre instructs the new South African Police Forces. There have been some positive changes in juvenile facilities because of this program. The Centre also works with soon to be released prison inmates by focusing on both the feelings of victims as well as stories of survival and rebirth. Children also remain a focus of the Centre.

Bo-Kaap: Trendy Neighborhood of Diversity

Today, Shileen Naikedien, lifelong Bo Kaap resident and tour guide with Bo-Kaap Tours, led me on a very complete and interesting tour of the Cape Town up and coming neighborhood of Bo-Kaap as evidenced by the exponentially increasing property values. I can not begin to remember all of the knowledge that Ms. Naikedien imparted to me on the tour so I will try to hit the highlights that are relevant to the theme of this blog.

The tour started at the Bo-Kaap House, now a museum within the Iziko museum group as like the Slave Lodge and Groot Constancia. While the Slave Lodge, as discussed, is the last remaing slave lodge of the East India Trading Company, the Bo-Kaap House 91763) is the only remaining private slave lodge left in Bo-Kaap eventhough the area, under the Dutch and English, had been dominated by such premises in colonial times. Unlike in American slavery, when often slaves lived on their master's estate if not loaned out to others, in Cape Town, owners chose to lock up their slaves in rented houses, away from the owner's home, for further protection from slave uprisings. Today, the Bo-Kaap Museum is used to explore the history of Bo-Kaap and, in particular, it's colored and Malay past, both Christian and Muslim.

During Apartheid, as the area was designated only for coloreds in the 1930s, the population was 80% Muslim. Today, many of the local schools are still predominantly Muslim eventhough the Muslim population, now able to relocate throughout South Africa, has decreased slightly to 70% Muslim. The area was able to maintain it's religious connection to Islam as many of the first religious leaders and Imams, sent as prisoners to Robben Island from other parts of the Dutch Empire, notably Indonesia and India, still practiced their religion after release and still under threat of re-arrest. Today, there are some fifty shrines honoring these individuals throughout Bo-Kaap which currently has a population of 9 to 12,000 people and contains ten mosques. The mosques can be ascertained from the sighting of minerets and the direction from which the call to afternoon prayer can be heard.

It is interesting to note that, in large part, the area has become economically desireable due to the ingenuity of its residents over twenty years ago. Although civic organizations were technically banned, residents, at that time, pooled their resources to buy Bo-Kaap homes in disrepair and to upgrade them. This prevented slumlords from acquiring the property and/or the government from knocking down the building as it was believed locally that this was being done to force colored families to live further out from the center of the city in the colored townships of the Cape Flats. Today, the brightly painted homes are often used for fashion photography shoots as South Africa is a season ahead (i.e. winter in the Northern Hemisphere means summer in South Africa, etc) from that of the Northern nations. The area has also become popular as a backdrop on film sets.

The area has been largely declared historical and, therefore, building renovations need city approval. Homes, even modern ones, need to represent the Dutch Cape and/or English Georgian style. English style is appropriate since the British gained control of the Cape from the Dutch after Great Britain went to war with the Netherlands in the 1700s. In 1899, the British would again go to war with Dutch descendants in South Africa - the Afrikaaners to determine with finality whether South Africa would be part of the British Empire or a series of independent or "free" Afrikaaner states. The British were able to maintain control of the area, eventhough outnumbered by Dutch residents, by co-opting the local colored population with promises of land and family security.

The Institute of Justice and Reconciliation: Connecting to Youth

The Institute of Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town does work like the Center for the Study on Violence and Reconcioliation - in Johannesburg - in that they both see intergenerational and cultural dialogue and recollection of personal memory as key to empowerment and any positive long-term changes in the country.

Indeed, the Institute has some rather interesting youth programming. The Institute has developed a board game, for instance, that calls upon players to take on roles as either oppressors or prisoners on Robben Island, be they victims of leprosy or political prisoners of the Dutch and/or English. The goal of the game is for prisoners to get off of the island. Albeit, most will not and must determine at the end of the game if they will give amnesty to the oppressor. The game is unique in that it does not just focus on political prisoners during the time of Apartheid but also on cases going as far back as the time of Dutch colonialism. As discussed previously, the Dutch were known to forcibly remove political prisoners from their other colonies like Batavia (Indonesia) and to bring them to South Africa. The game, which also uses youth generated poetry and song, then spurs on dialogue, led by the Institute, on modern human rights issues of which youth today can relate. The District Six Museum in Cape Town also hosts a like simulation.

The Institute also runs diversity circles that bring members from different communities together to talk about different interpretations of the past as a means by which to develop a mutual understanding of differences. This has worked reasonably well between formerly Black and Colored communities, which are still disadvantaged, but not as well with more affluent communities. These communities are able to provide for their own security and may not see a "crisis" in needing to cooperate as fully. Further, former Model C schools (white schools) have been making efforts to integrate some disadvantaged and minority youth into their school communities.

I was also excited to learn about the Institute's interest in the youth-generated transcription of oral histories - particularly in the Northern Cape Province where over 100 oral histories of the native San and Nama peoples have been transcribed and edited. As these projects are community-based in an effort to foster self-identity, respect, and capability, these communities also arranged to hire a professional artist to train locally unemployed artists to illustrate these stories. Some of these artists have also been involved in the production of a series of works on migrant labor.

All of these programs connect youth to the previous two generations which is becoming of paramount importance as students today often do not know of the racial/economic struggles during and before Apartheid. While Apartheid is taught as part of the high school values curriculum, for instance, history (which includes geography) itself is not mandated after the ninth grade. Therefore, while being discussed, Apartheid may not be addressed in any deep, introspective way in the public schools. As previously stated, however, the Federal DOE is soon mandating Apartheid study in schools as a means by which to develop a more ingrained national identity.

The Institute stated that it would be open to participating on a NJ teacher/SA teacher and/or student exchange. For more information, please contact Valdi Van Reenen at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town. Web site and further information can be found on Google.

District Six in Cape Town: Lost but not Forgotten

The Victims - by Willie Adams (June 1976)

To us you will be more

than just another memory

A living example to follow

since we have lost your bodies

but gained your spirit

In addition to visiting the F.W. de Klerk Foundation (see other post), earlier in the day, I met with Mahererah Gamieldien and Mandy Sanger - educators from the District Six Museum - one of the finest museums of memory in the city and internationally. While the District Six Museum celebrates life in District Six, a mixed area of 3 million inter-connected coloreds, Christians, Muslims, Jews, other whites, artists, poets, musicians, etc. that were forcibly removed to various townships depending on the race of the individual during Apartheid (February 11, 1966), it, in reality, attempts to use the memory of District 6 in helping youth to address contemporary issues around forced migration, national identity as opposed to just individual cultural identity, human rights, peaceful reconciliation, etc. and is a member of international museums of consciousness. (As a side note, many District Six residents were moved to Mitchell's Plain - the area where I am shadowing a high school principal.) Discussion of these issues will become increasingly important as Cape Town, the geography of which had largely been determined by the Group Removals Act under Apartheid, begins to integrate its multiple ethnic groups in its leafy suburbs once the exclusive reserves of whites.

It works with students internationally through student exchanges and allows students to participate in exhibitions creation and/or photography and design. It also provides local and international teachers with seminars on tolerance. In an effort to move the country beyond its current difficulties with violent crime, which the museum sees as a result of the low self-esteem and dignity that often comes with poverty, the museum hopes that its tolerance education programs will lead people to see worth in themselves and others.

The museum sees the process of collecting memory through stories as more important than facts as the sharing of memories promotes dialogue, discussion, and ultimately social interconnection between generations. Indeed, the district map on the main floor was created, collectively, by former residents who were also encouraged to include side stories and poems alongside the map. Depending on when one visits, one can also participate in a tour of the museum that is led by a former District Six resident. While many museums worship the past, Sanger adds that the D6 museum also engages current voices. The museum hopes to add to its programming by expanding its online/distance learning programs with international students and human rights scholars. I hope to engage my students in this process.

As an interesting sidebar highlighting the diversity of South Africa, Ms. Gamieldien is a direct descendent of Sheik Yusuf, an Indonesian Sheik imprisoned by the Dutch, on Robben Island, for his political activities in Indonesia several hundred years ago. Sheik Yusuf is noted for rewriting the Koran, in full, from memory, while on Robben Island. He never returned to Indonesia. Ms. Gamieldien's family, which was forcibly removed from the Constancia area and sent to a colored township, recently was awarded restitution for their lost land in Constancia. Ms. Sanger was also detained in isolation, during Apartheid, for being a student activist/teacher and wanting students to explore history. She sometimes also shares her story with students who visit the D6 museum. The Amazing Race was also at the D6 Museum today picking up clues.

The F.W. de Klerk Foundation: Dedication to the new Constitution

Today, I met with Mr. Dave Steward, Executive Director of the FW De Klerk Foundation and Former South African Ambassador to the United Nations and Chief Counsel during the de Klerk Presidential Administration. (I missed Mr. de Klerk by five minutes but have a nice signed photograph). We discussed the priorities of the Foundation, the continuing impact of history and diverse memory as well as South African/United States relations during the Apartheid era. During the meeting, we discussed different perspectives on issues of race, nation building, and diversity than in other meetings that I have had with NGOs, township educators, and museum curators.

At its core, the Foundation is committed to promoting the core values of ex-President de Klerk. Namely, the organization is concerned with the continued peaceful resolution of disputes, in a country still grappling with a myriad of cultural interpretations on the country's history, and the protection and promotion of the new Constitution that guarantees human rights for all South Africans - the formerly oppressed as well as the advantaged. This is accomplished through the convening of conferences where leaders of all minority and other communities can engage in continued dialogue on issues such as the formation of a national identity while, concurrently, maintaining individual cultural identity. Also, the foundation educates the public to its rights under the new Constituion and monitors legislative threats to constituional democracy in the new South Africa. This is no easy task as, according to Steward, education and the media need to work together in helping citizens to form new loyalties to the state rather than to any particular ethnic group as the one thing in common shared by all South Africans is the new Constitution.

Last year, the foundation also inaugerated the Centre for Constitutional Rights which 1) supports the values/rights inherent in the Constitution, monitors legislative developments that affect the Constitution (this led to an interesting conversation on the Bush Administration and Congress), participates in Parlimentary committees that deal with issues of constitutionality, and conducts studies that assess Constitutional developments in broader society.

Of particular interest and complexity are issues of childrens versus parent rights, language rights, cultural rights, and local versus Federal educational rights (particularly concerning the local governance of schools through school governing bodies). One case, in particular, on which the Foundation voiced an opinion concerned the ban on Western Cape police from using Afrikaans, even if this was their first language, and on the policy that all police business would be conducted in English. In the end, this policy was found to be unconstitutional, by the Constitutional Court, as it was deemed to be a violation of cultural/language rights under the new Constitution. The foundation has also become involved in issues surrounding land restitution and redistribution.

Public education is seen as a particularly important emphasis by the foundation. While it and the Federal government are trying to work with affluent school governing bodies/school districts to accept more disadvantaged students, supported through funds acquired from trusts and school fees, which are significantly higher than in the former townships, Steward fears that many parents will opt for private education and/or leave the country if pushed too intensely. Indeed, since 1994, up to one million whites have left the country for better employment/other opportunities.

Complicating progress on reconciliation remains, as Steward argues, the "elephant in the room" - i.e. different interpretations of the past and expectations for the future - and we are all prisoners of history. Many disadvantaged and disenfranchised want the government to do more in terms of social restorative benefits - i.e. recent strike - and perhaps to even nationalize industries while those more affluent argue that they have succeeded, not because of white priority, but because of hard work and cite recent financial gains of affluent blacks/coloreds resulting from minority empowerment schemes. This community also asks to what degree should they be held accountable for the sins of their parents. Indeed, to punish the affluent today, including whites, would undermine the concept of reconciliation and have consequences for continued progress towards a national identity. Yet, at the same time, the large differential between the rich and poor is fueling the recent spike in domestic crime and violence and threatens the booming economy - especially the tourism sector - and contributes to the international flight of those with marketable skills. The foundation does, however, work with organizations in identifying disadvantaged students who exhibit talent in various artistic/academic areas.

On a side note, as former SA ambassador to the UN during Apartheid, Mr. Stewards' comments on why it took as long as it did to end Apartheid were very interesting. As Afrikaaners (not all) opposing an end to Apartheid were not immigrants, had been in-country for more than several generations (1600s), and had fought Britain in an effort to establish a unique South African identity, their voices needed to be heard and the one man/one vote and right for self-determination could not be overlooked. There was also a fear on the part of the Apartheid era governments that since the African National Congress was aligned to communist parties that, after national liberation, a communist society would be formed in South Africa. Lastly, the government looked at the disasterous results of independence movements in the rest of Africa that led to widescale bloodshed and dictatorships.

While Steward stated that SA wanted to be rid of the "tiger" of Apartheid, they were not sure how to accomplish that. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government was in a better position to move towards democratization as communism ceased to be a threat. (Mandela and the ANC was also in a mood of compromise). Further, many Afrikaaners initially opposed to integration, had moved from blue collar, union-protected positions/trades to white collar professions , with the growth in the domestic economy from the 1960s to 1980s, and were not as threatened by the abolition of Apartheid.

Robben Island: Committed to Educational Outreach

I just heard that Cape Town is expecting four separate winter storm systems this coming week. I am beginning to understand why the Cape is also called "the Cape of Storms". As such, it is not looking promising that I will be visiting Robben Island as my time in South Africa is winding down.

Besides, if I understand correctly, the Robben Island maximum security prison - where Nelson Mandela, anti-Apartheid leader and former SA president, was held for 18 years before being moved to Drakenstein Prison on the mainland for the last three years of his incarceration is being renovated. As an aside, Mandela was moved to the mainland because this made negotiations for democratic change between the SA government and Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) easier to conduct. In exchange of Mandela's release, the SA government wanted Mandela's commitment through negotiation that a peaceful transition would occur.

Today, Robben Island is not only a world heritage site, due to its association with Mandela and other pro-democracy leaders such as Sebukwe, but also a nature reserve. Although I have yet to visit the island, I have had the opportunity to meet with education program officer - Thotoane Pekeche- to discuss Robben Island outreach K-12 and educational focus.

Robben Island is committed to working with schools in SA in order to share/teach the importance of heritage education in the process of democratization in the country. Besides trained heritage educators, some of whom are ex-prisoners, leading group tours of the island, there is often special programming for school children. This includes but is not limited to a "knowledge hunt" on which students must locate and understand the significance of certain key sites on the island. Following this, Robben Island educators visit schools to evaluate the learning experience while on the island. There is also a primary school on the island for children of Robben Island educators with which the organization pilots various educational programs.

For students 18 and below, Robben Island provides schools with an "apple box" which includes primary source materials such as fascimiles of personal objects of ex-prisoners. Students can then analyze these materials. Working with school-based educators, prior to planned visits, Robben Island educators can tailor these learning kids to the specific interest area of teachers be it the anti-Apartheid era of Mandela and/or the time when the island was used as an isolation area for those with leprosy. Island educators have also used prison conditions to discuss the spread of illness which often segways into a discussion on the methods of contraction for HIV/Aids.

I was particularly intrigued to learn about Robben Island's innovative "Road Shows". Collaborating with the education departments within each of the country's nine provinces, Robben Island works to identify local artists and writers who can relate to students in the locally preferred native language (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, etc) and help students to role-play the history of Robben Island and the significance of the island to national identity. The island also collaborates with regional tolerance and youth heritage centers such as the Hector Pietersen Museum in Soweto (Jo'bg), as well as the Cape Town Holocaust Centre in providing tolerance/diversity programming to law enforcement officers/SA Police Agency and other adult educators. Robben Island also works with local universities to provide an advanced degree in museum studies that includes coursework on conservation, collection, and public outreach.

Through this programming, Robben Island is able to identify students who exhibit leadership capabilities and then invites these students to either participate in a week-long Spring School (September) Program on the island or to involved in the Young Leaders Academy. As Robben Island was also used for political prisoners from Namibia (once controlled from SA as Southwest Africa), Namibian students also participate. This is used as an opportunity to discuss contemporary issues in SA such as crime, HIV, domestic abuse, conflict resolution, gender equality, etc. Issues are discussed in deeper terms and connections are made to other world leaders who advocated peaceful resolution of issues such as Mohatma Gandhi and an evaluation of the SA Truth and Reconciliation Trial Process is undertaken. It is hoped that through this process that participating students would go back to their communities to faciltate conflict remediation.

As a point of reference, Sebuwke was a leader within the Pan-African Congress whom the Apartheid government put in prison isolation for fear that he would influence the other prisoners through "political education".

South Africa and Italian POWs

While touring wineries today, I came across the small, non-descript winery of Zanddrift. In fact, if I was not specifically looking for it, I would have easily passed it (which I and my taxi driver still managed to do several times). In fact, the winery itself is closed on Sundays. However, I came for a specific purpose; this was to see the chapel built by Italian prisoners of war during World War II. According to some very preliminary research that I conducted, there were over 100,00 Italian POWs held by the British in South Africa during the war.

The British feared holding their captives in North Africa so close to where they were fighting both the Italians and Germans. It was also difficult to ship prisoners to England and/or Canada and the United States as German ships and submarines were patrolling the Atlantic Ocean. As such, the British felt that the safest route for transport of POWs was southwards down the East Coast of Africa towards South Africa. Transporting Italian POWs to South Africa was also a convenient way to keep prisoners occupied with community service projects such as the building of buildings and/or mountain passes. While the vast majority of POWs returned to Italy after the war, some eventually relocated to both Britain and to South Africa building an expatriot community. There was also somewhat of an Italian community in South Africa, prior to the war, as skilled trades people such as scupltors, builders, marble importers, masons, etc. were needed for other building projects in this British colony of the time. Indeed, several Italian companies were involved, for instance, in the building of the Voortrekker Monument, outside of Pretoria, during the 1930s.

"C'est Le South Africa": The Country's French Past

Today, I again took advantage of some fine weather to visit the wine producing region around Cape Town which is centered around the interior towns of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek (French Corner), and Paarl. Franschhoek, just in case it's name nor the imposing 1948 Huguenot Monument of a woman standing on a globe with her feet touching France does not give it away, has a significant connection to France.

While the Edict of Nantes of April 1598 bestowed equal religious rights for French "Protestants" following Martin Luther, A German monk protesting against the corruption within the Catholic Church, violence and persecution of French Protestants in predominantly Catholic France continued. Indeed, in 1685, the Edict was officially revoked through the Edict of Fontainebleau. On fear of execution and/or imprisonment, many French Huguenots, as French Protestants were now being called, left France for more tolerant and/or other Protestant nations. Many were welcomed openly in the Netherlands. In an effort to encourage immigration to their new Cape Colony (now the Western Cape Province of South Africa), the Dutch East India Company offered these Huguenot refugees land and loans of farming equipment with favorable terms of repayment. Eventually, by 1720, some 270 French Huguenots would come to the Cape Colony settling around the area of Franschhoek. Given that the Dutch government was firm in demanding that the children of French refugees learn Dutch, as part of their education, and only temporary allowed church sermons to be conducted in French, by the mid 1700s, the Huguenots were fully intergrated into the Dutch community in the Cape colony. Although only 270 in number, many Afrikaaners and others now carry surnames that were originally French.

Some of the Cape wineries were started by French Huguenots but, as elsewhere, were very much developed on the labor of indentured servants and local mixed slaves and those from East Asia. Today, I visited, for example, the winery of Boschendal (Wood Dale) which lies half-way between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. In 1685, it was one of the first deeded properties. Started by Jean de Long, a Huguenot, it was then purchased by fellow French refugee Abraham de Villiers and remained in the de Villiers family until 1879. After this, the property was purchased by mining magnate and philanthropist Cecil John Rhodes to be run as an agricultural pilot program. Having changed hands many times, today, the estate is run by a consortium of companies and cooperates with the national government in ensuring that the historical legacy of this farm will remain intact.

Southern Suburbs: Groot Constancia, Kirstenbosch Gardens, Irma Stern House and Table Mountain

For a bit of educational leisure and to take advantage of a forecasted sunny day, rain is on the way again, I decided to dedicate my saturday to the exploration of Cape Town's southern suburbs near Table Mountain. This ended up including a tour of the Groot Constancia dutch-style winery/estate, the Kirstenbach National Gardens, the Irma Stern Museum, and a cable car ride up Table Mountain.

Many of you may have seen photos or even have visited Groot Constancia as it is a well-touristed historical site. Groot Constancia (Great Constancia) is South Africa's oldest wine producing estate. Originally built in the late 1600s by the Dutch East India Company and given to the Cape's first governor, the estate, one of the best preserved examples of colonial dutch architecture, changed hands three or four times before being ceded to the South African government. As previously discussed, Groot Constancia, as with other industries, relied on slave labor from other parts of Africa, India, and Indonesia as well as on Cape born coloreds. Even after slavery was abolished by the British in the 1830s, Groot Constancia continued to use "apprentice laborers/tradesmen"; individuals who had been seized by the British from illegal slave traders. Groot Constancia continues to produce award-winning wine and is even known to have been consumed by Napoleon when he had been exiled to Saint Helena Island. The house also hosted dignitaries, during the era of the British Empire, en route from England to assume posts in the then still remote and distant Australia. The main house remains open for tours and is furnished in the Dutch style. Some of the furniture, however, was made locally of stinkwood - a tree indigenous to South Africa. The original bachelor's quarters is now a restaurant while the slave quarters now houses the museum orientation center. The original wine celler now houses a collection of wagons and other historical materials used in the production of wine. There is also a modern wine-tasting center.

Following this, I was lucky to have visited some of the most beautiful gardens that I have ever seen. Kirstenbosch National Gardens rivals the best gardens in the world even, perhaps, besting Kew Gardens in London in some regards. Kirstenbosch, a local center for the conservation of indigenous plants, does, indeed, consist of mostly indigenous plants to South Africa and currently cultivates some 9,000 out of 20,000 native species of plants including those in danger of extinction due largely to human error brushfires. The only part of the garden not indigenous to South Africa remains the alley of trees planted by Cecil Rhodes, over 100 years ago, each representing a different area of the then far-flung British empire. Cecil Rhodes also donated the land to create Kirstenbosch. As South African winters are more mild than those in the Northeast of the United States, and is like that of California, there is always something blooming such as Proteas. However, the garden is apparently best viewed in early/late spring (August to October). As a reminder to my 9th grade learners, as South Africa is in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed to that of the United States.

It only being two-thirty at this time, and wanting to visit Table Mountain closer to sunset, I took the advice of my guidebook to visit a lesser-known house museum nestled in the suburb of Rosebank. Now owned by the University of Cape Town, the Irma Stern Museum remains a testament to the creative artistic talents of its namesake. Ms. Stern, a South African artist of German-Jewish background, had a leaning towards portraiture painting and vivid colors. Albeit, some of her works are realistic in nature while others were influenced by the likes of Picasso or, perhaps, Matisse. Ms. Stern, herself always grappling with issues of identity and isolation as a white, Jewish African woman, was consistently drawn to creating images of the "other". Indeed, in South Africa with its diversity, in some ways, every one is "the other". The house is covered from floor to ceiling with Ms. Stern's paintings of individuals be they African or European as encountered during Ms. Stern's long sojourns to pre/post WW I era Germany. While I think that the only paintings in the home were solely created by this committed artist, indeed she married and quickly divorced, in part, because of her creative passions, the home is also abundantly filled with artifacts from Ms. Stern's travels throughout Africa and the world. The front door, for example, was collected by Ms. Stern during her travels to Zanzibar. The studio in the home remains as it did on the day when Ms. Stern passed away and her paints/brushes seem as if they remain ready for use once again. The house itself is also a cornicopia of color. All in all, this was a very interesting museum that left me wanting to know more about this artist.

The views from the top of Table Mountain were spectacular and worth the cable car trip. Of particular note, I found the role of the mountain itself in the creation of Cape Town interesting. As the mountain is tall, it captures moisture from the sea winds/mist which settles on its scrub bushes and rocks. This moisture collects in small pools and eventually descends down the mountain, through cracks and fissures, to produce fresh water for the city below. This is especially important during the dry, hot summer months.

The Slave Lodge and Robben Island

Today, July 20th, 2007 was a miserably rainy and windy winters day in Cape Town. Much like the climate of Southern Europe, Cape Town winters tend to be wet as opposed to other areas of the country which, while cool, tend to be sunny and even warm in the afternoon. While this should not be a problem in turns of moving around, it does preclude boat rides to Robben Island, and/or cable car visits to the top of Table Mountain. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow.

I took advantage of the day by stopping by the Slave Lodge. As previously discussed, the Dutch East India Company needed slave labor to keep the economy of the Cape going. Indeed, during parts of the 1700s, there were more enslaved people than free. Untold numbers of slaves were shipped, in conditions of misery, to the Cape from a myriad of locations - West Africa, Mozambique/Madagascar, India, and/or Indonesia (Batavia) from the 1600s until slavery was abolished by the British in the 1830s. Sexual relations between slaves and native peoples as well as relationships between slave women and male colonists only increased the number of mixed-race slaves in the Cape. To this day, one can still see this racial intermixing in the faces of the colored population which is not seen, as clearly, in other regions of South Africa.

If not sold off to private parties upon their entering of the Cape, slaves would work for the Dutch East India Company by day and would be locked up in crowded, disease-ridden, and poorly-lit cells of the slave lodge by night. At the height of its use, the Slave Lodge housed an average of 500 to 1,000 people , including native Khoekhoe with venereal disease, prisoners and the mentally disturbed. One of the oldest 17th century buildings in Cape Town and the only remaining Dutch East India Company slave lodge in the world, the Iziko Slave Lodge Museum is now in the process of converting all of its space to the celebration of the heritage and legacy of the enslaved. One can, however, still see ancient Eqyptian artifacts on the second floor of the museum. The museum also hopes to soon be included on the UNESCO and WTO International Slave Route Project, which was begun in 1995, and continues to excavate items related to the lives of slaves changing human wrongs to human rights.

I also had the opportunity to meet and talk today with Robben Island education program officer - Thotoane Pekeche. As many of you know, Robben Island housed a maximum security prison for both criminals and political prisoners during Apartheid. Now, it is also known as a nature reserve and is a world heritage site. I will write about this conversation when I have an opportunity to visit the island. I was supposed to visit today but, due to bad weather, all boats to the island were grounded.

Cape Town and the Western Cape: The Colored Majority

Today, I began a three-day shadowing of a principal at a secondary school in one of the colored townships around Cape Town. The school is unusual in that, even during Apartheid, the school, built in 1983, has accepted all students. As such, the student body, while mostly colored, has a significant minority of Xhosa (Koza) students from the township of Khayelitsha and diversity programming has hence been a priority. The languages of instruction are Afrikaans and English eventhough some students speak Xhosa as a first language. The vast remainder speak Afrikaans as a first language. There are a few students of Indian descent but these students are also of mixed ancestry. Surnames of those of colored ancestry could have originally been Dutch, Indian, English, French and/or of other origin. As my time at the school continues, I will continue to post.

The Colored community in the Cape Town region plays a significant role in the area being the majority population. As the Dutch became the world sea power and trader of spices from Indonesia (Batavia), in the early 1600s, they began to depend on slaves. Some Indonesian slaves were thus transported to the Cape in South Africa which the Dutch established as a resupply depot in between the Netherlands and Asia. (As an aside, the British agreed to give up any claims in Indonesia for the handover of control from the Dutch over New Amsterdam - i.e. New York City). In time, these slaves mixed with whites and Indians to eventually create a "colored" community. The coloreds also suffered under Apartheid being forced to move from areas around Cape Town, such as Constancia and Simon's Town, which had become desirable areas south of Cape Town designated for white settlement. These are some of the most spectacularly beautiful places I have ever seen! The coloreds were then forced to move to the less-than-desirable Cape Flats and colored designated townships such as Mitchell's Plain. Today, if those removed owned property in areas from which they were evicted and those properties were destroyed, individuals can apply for restitution.

The Bo-Kaap area within the Center City was also largely colored and they too were also expected to move under the Group Resettlement Act. This community, however, refused and Bo-Kaap remains largely colored today. There are several museums and tours of Bo-Kaap now commemorating the contributions of this community to the growth of South Africa. The community itself is also diverse in that some colored South Africans are Muslim while others are Christian and/or non-affiliated.

BIRTH OF A LANGUAGE: AFRIKAANS

THE BIRTH OF A LANGUAGE: AFRIKAANS

From his home in Oudtshoorn, Arbeidsgenot (House of Work and Pleasure), C.J. Langenhoven (1873-1932) co-authored the South African Anthem, “Die Stem”. Langenhoven was, however, much more than the legacy of this one work. Arbeidsgenot was donated to the country following the death of Langenhoven’s wife in the 1950s. Langenhoven and his wife, a widow ten years his senior, have been re-interned on the property after vandalism damaged the original family cemetery. The house, complete with its original furnishings, is open on weekdays for tours.

Born into an Afrikaans-speaking farming family, Langenhoven was educated as a lawyer and became a distinguished Afrikaans author of stories for children ages 2 to 100. When asked about studying in Europe, Langenhoven replied that there was more than enough to occupy his time in South Africa. Langenhoven’s most noted works, all written in Afrikaans, include “Christmas Kinder”, the Trouble with Neighbors, and Harrie the Elephant. Noted for his sense of humor, Langenhoven was also committed to the adoption of Afrikaans as an official language of South Africa as he was opposed to having just English and/or “high Dutch” used in schools, and the government. Langenhoven felt that both Dutch and English were dominating education and the courts, and that full meanings and subtleties of words were being lost in translations of legal precedence. Langenhoven was successful in having Afrikaans, as opposed to Dutch, adopted in public schools, by 1914, and after becoming a senator in the 1920s, was also able to have Afrikaans adopted as an official language of the courts and country by 1927.

Of course, this was to have far reaching implications as the adoption of Afrikaans in the townships, during the Apartheid era and at the expense of English and native languages, was to lead, in part, to the Soweto Uprising in the 1970s. This is the subject of the Hector Pietersen Museum in Soweto and the Apartheid Museum as discussed in previous posts.

Afrikaans, according to Peter – the manager of Arbeidsgenot, is “a language of Africa” and is constantly changing to reflect the diversity of the country as a whole. Indeed, as I travel through the country, it appears that Afrikaans is the language of communication between ethnic groups with English as a second. Although, it is not uncommon to hear words in English, Zulu, and/or Hindi/Urdu thrown in for good measure. Having originally developed from Dutch, after the Dutch originally settled the Cape of Good Hope in the 1600s (as a refueling station for its ships heading to the spice islands in Asia), it is the direct result of how local Blacks and Coloreds tried to make sense of the Dutch language and then how the Whites themselves took control over the development of the language.

Afrikaaners today are descended from these original Dutch settlers as well as from Germans and French Protestants who fled Catholic France in the wake of religious persecution. Common Afrikaaner names include, but are not limited to, Van De Berg, Van de Mewre (sp?), Du Plessy, Joubert, Le Roux, and De Marais. It is also from this Afrikaaner group that some individuals, those unhappy with growing British domination as Dutch maritime power waned and British power increased, left the Cape colonies moving east and north - eventually to establish the Free State and to settle the areas that would become Johannesburg and Pretoria. Coloureds are descended from the mixing of white, black, and Malays/Asians brought into the country as cheap labor by the European controlling powers. While rare during the Apartheid era, South Africans are mixing much more openly today.

Often referred to as “pigeon Dutch”, Afrikaans was originally looked down upon because indeed it includes fewer words than in High Dutch. Nonetheless, Dutch, Flemish (Belgian form of Dutch), and Afrikaans speakers can communicate with one another to this day if with occasional difficulty over pronunciation differences.

The Ostrich Capital and the Role of the South African Jewish Community

THE OSTRICH CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND THE EMERGENCE OF A JEWISH SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNITY


Having had a few free days in my schedule, I decided to go to “The Little Karoo”, a dry area in the Eastern Cape in between two mountain ranges - one being the Swartberg Mountain Chain (Black Mountains). The dry and warm area conditions are ideal for the breeding of ostriches. As such, the area around Oudtshoorn - the unofficial small town capital of this region – is dotted with game reserves, Victorian stone masonry cottages, curio shops with anything/everything ostrich, and touristy/non-touristy ostrich farms. The feel is most assuredly “Afrikaner” and English is a mere secondary language of means with tourists.

As the day started, I went to Chandelier Game Reserve to take a tour of their ostrich operation and nearly killed myself on a three-wheeler riding around the reserve with a guide. I was truly impressed with the myriad of ways that farmers take advantage of this bird. While, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, ostrich feathers were worth more than gold as the demand for such feathers in the fashion industry was of paramount importance and many grew rich on this awkward looking avian creature, the outbreak of World War One in Europe put an end to the feather boom. Yet, in modern times, the industry is again lucrative but in the most diverse of ways. Ostrich farms raise funds entertaining tourists and selling ostrich related curios, including the stuffing of unborn chicks for interested tourists. Ostrich meat is sold throughout the world and its leathery skin fetches a high price. Non-fertile and abnormal eggs are either ground-down to provide calcium to females within breeding pairs or sold to craftsmen who hollow out the eggs and apply decoupage to create lamps, tea kettles, and an as sundry of egg curios. The manure is used to create paper. Eggs are collected from breeding pairs and given to breeders to incubate thus inspiring females in pairs to lay even more eggs. Some of these chicks will be selected for breeding, if large, while the majority will be sold to slaughter houses for the production and curing of meat. It is far from unusual to find ostrich, Kudu (deer) or Springbok (deer) on local menus.

In the early years of the Twentieth Century, many farmers of ostrich were Afrikaners. Yet, at the same time, many Jewish South Africans were also involved in the trade of ostrich-related products on the world market. Having originally fled Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and other areas of Central/Eastern Europe because of anti-Semitic pogroms, the Jewish community around Oudtshoorn soon numbered in the thousands and led to the creation of two major synagogues. At one point, this was the largest concentrations of Jewish South Africans even larger than those people who congregated in the Johannesburg and Kimberley areas because of the trade in gold and diamonds. One of these synagogues, originally built in the 1890s, can now be seen intact within the town’s C.P. Nel Museum as the building itself was torn down after the Jewish community began to dissipate following the bust of the feather market after World War One. Much of this community relocated to Johannesburg, Cape Town, and/or overseas. Today, there are only five or six Jewish families living in the area and rabbis must come from the populated cities of South Africa to service the religious needs of these families. In Cape Town, I also plan on visiting the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Centre.