Apartheid Museum and Soweto

The last time I journeyed to Pretoria, I decided to finally go on a tour of the Apartheid Museum and Soweto; things that I have wanted to do since I first arrived to South Africa, but as of yet had not had the chance. After Apartheid ended officially in 1994 with the first multi-party elections that brought Nelson Mandela and the ANC to power, the new government decided that remembering Apartheid was just as important as ending it. History has a very nasty habit of repeating itself, and unless certain events, no matter how horrible they may be, are remembered, they run the risk of reoccurring. The government decided to build a remembrance museum, both to tell the history of apartheid and to honor the men and women who struggled to end it.

The moment a visitor enters the museum, he or she is given a card. On the card is written “white,” “black,” “Coloured,” or “Asian.” These were the four official races under Apartheid and everyone living in South Africa was classified to a race. A person’s race determined their status in life. Everything in South Africa under Apartheid revolved around the color of a person’s skin. Once receiving the card, the visitor proceeds to the true entrance of the museum, two doors, one labeled “White” the other labeled “Non-white.” The visitor enters the museum according to the card they were given at the gate. Through the doors are two identical hallways, only one for the “whites” and the other for the “non-whites.” The hallways are separated by a thick metal and mesh fence. This entrance gives the visitor an impression of what apartheid was like for the people living under it. Eventually the hallways end and the museum continue, telling the story of apartheid chronologically, beginning when white settlers first arrived in South Africa and continuing until the 1990s. The museum is pretty intense, and not geared to be taken lightly or for a quick run-through. A visitor could easily spend all day there because there is so much to read and absorb. Unfortunately, that is where the Apartheid Museum has its main flaw. While I did not mind the reading-intensity of the museum, all of the information in the museum was written in English, and none of the other eleven official languages of South Africa. So many people- South Africans even, will not be able to appreciate the museum for what it is or really learn everything that it has to offer only because the information is so in-depth reading and in complicated English. It really is a sad thing.

After visiting the Apartheid Museum, we continued on the other part of our tour, that is, to Soweto. Soweto is a huge black township outside of Johannesburg, home to Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu. It is the only place in the entire world that has two Nobel Peace Prize winners living on the same street (Mandela and Tutu). It also has 4.5 million residents, the largest hospital in the world and the largest taxi rank as well. Soweto also made history on June 16, 1976 in the struggle for apartheid. School children in Soweto staged a protest against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in Secondary Schools. Afrikaans is the language of the descendants of white Dutch settlers to South Africa, and many of the youth viewed Afrikaans as the language of their oppressors as the Apartheid government was largely made of Afrikaans men. The youth decided to stage a peaceful demonstration through the Soweto streets to display their anger and dismay at having to be taught in Afrikaans. Not long after their march started, South African army personnel and police officers called in to stop the protest opened fire on the crowd of children. The first boy to die was twelve-year-old Hector Peterson, and dozens of others followed. The Soweto Uprising was one of the key events that made the world aware of what was happening in South Africa and also further encouraged the ANC to step up their protests against the Apartheid government. I enjoyed visiting Soweto probably more than I did visiting the Apartheid museum. As a history buff I like seeing the places where events occurred as well as reading about them. Walking by the schools where most of the children involved in the Soweto Uprising/Massacre attended and seeing the memorial to Hector Peterson at the place he died was powerful in a way different to the Apartheid Museum.

STRIKE!!!!

One of the more interesting experiences I’ve had in South Africa occurred continuously over the last month or so. Interesting not in the form of exciting- in fact I was bored to the extent where I wanted to bang my head against the wall- but rather interesting in the “wow, that would never happen at home!” sort of way. The experience I am talking about was the huge public servant strike. For about a month prior to the strike the unions and government were in a stalemate. The workers union, COSATU, and all of the unions affiliated to it were demanding a 12% increase in wages for all public servants including nurses, police officers, doctors, court officials, teachers and many others that I have now forgotten. The government balked at the 12% and instead offered 6%. Now, having worked in the schools in SA for two years and seeing just exactly what many of the teachers here consider “work,” I thought that the 6% the government offered was more than reasonable. In fact, it was extremely generous! If I had my way, a number of teachers would have their salaries removed permanently (I mean come on, they think that they can sit in the staff room drinking tea all day without doing their job of teaching the children and still deserve a nice paycheck at the end of the month?) and the money then given to the teachers who really deserve it. But, I do not think that the government would have been interested in listening to my views of the situation, nor any of my teachers for that matter. The negotiations soon became a matter of pride, and then degenerated. Neither side wanted to back down and the unions soon declared a strike if the government did not cave to their wishes. The government stuck to its 6% and a nation-wide public servant strike began on the 1st of June.

In the US, there are occasional strikes- normally by small company employees and the like. The workers strike for a few weeks, but it does not affect the entire country. I have never, ever been in a situation where an entire country goes on strike! And that is what it seemed like. For the four weeks the strike lasted (That’s right, everybody- FOUR WEEKS!) nurses refused to go to work, courts did not operating, and probably about 80% of SAs schools closed or worked with a minimal staff. All three of my schools closed, as were the schools of all of SAs Education PCVs. So, suddenly out of work with an impromptu holiday (and no way of knowing how long it would last) I suddenly had a great deal of time on my hands. I must admit, I really enjoyed not having to go to school. I got to sleep late (well, I cannot sleep past 7:30 anymore, but I did not have to wake up via alarm clock!) and to enjoy a leisure day spent reading, walking, or whatever else suited my fancy. The only problem was that all my host sisters and my host mother (a vice-principal) also had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I love my host sisters, but spending all day with them became too much after day 4. Especially when during the middle of Week One Lethabo started putting one song on repeat on her stereo and letting it play ALL DAY LONG. At the end of Week One I counted, in one day, how many times we listened to it. The 32nd time it played I pulled big sister rank and turned the CD off. That did not go down very well with Lethabo, but I think she would have preferred having the music stop to me murdering her, which I was a hair breadth away from doing. People undergoing torture cannot be responsible for their actions. By the middle of Week Two I ascertained that I was going crazy, and by Week Three I decided to leave the village and head to Pretoria. I had to pick up my sister at the airport at the end of the week, so I decided to start my real vacation a bit early.

By the end of Week Four, everyone was tired of the strike. The news tired of covering the protesting workers, and everyone tired of hearing about them. After four weeks, the workers themselves seemed ready to call it quits- demonstrations every day just get old (and I think they fully realized that striking workers are not paid workers and they were losing a lot of money every day the strike continued). So, the unions and the government finally worked out a deal: all public servants would receive a 7.5% wage increase plus medical and pension benefits. Finally, everyone returned to work. Now, I have to admit that despite the ridiculous extent that the strike was taken, I was pretty impressed by the stubbornness displayed by all players. Honestly, no one expected the strike to last more than a few days, yet everyone stuck to their guns for a month. It was interesting to see, as it was an event that I would never see at home.