Political Science N146C. I think there were only about six or seven guys, the rest being girls. Most people came directly from Berkeley to South Africa.
South Africa was the second region in my World Tour of 2000. It was also the trip which I organized the rest of my summer around. The trip was a course on contemporary South African politics taught by Professor Robert Price. I had taken his course on the history of South African politics and I learned a great deal.
The class spent two weeks in Cape Town and one week in Johannesburg. From visiting museums and talking with people we learned about South Africa's evil history. Apartheid was not simply about racism; it was about how a regime divided an entire society and regulated it by skin color. Political thinkers argue the reason for its existence; some say it was created by the paranoia of the white minority, others say it was a tool of the mining and agriculture sectors to ensure cheap labor. What I can certainly say is that it was not only cruel and inhumane, but also completely irrational. South Africa's manufacturing industries needed stable, literate, and skilled workers, and they also wanted to expand their domestic markets beyond their tiny white consumer population. Intelligent and hardworking blacks were largely obstructed from receiving education and skills, and they were denied the ability to contribute to their country. And most ironically, the apartheid system that was meant to separate whites from blacks who were feared as being barbaric and ignorant was designed to specifically place and maintain blacks in such a wretched condition. Blacks were seen as ruffians who would create a society based on rule of force, and the answer was to keep them as far as possible from the rule of law and the protection of the courts. To me, South Africa's past represented the ultimate form of an evil created from a simple premise: that it is the government's duty to decide what each arbitrary group of people (whether they be divided by race, religion, ethnicity, etc.) is entitled to and what each has the freedom to do. Does affirmative action and quotas operate on this premise? I guess that's something to really think about.
Anyway, apartheid was defeated by the African National Congress, a movement which carried an idea completely contrary to the premises behind apartheid: nonracialism. Nonracialism is the concept that race should have no role to play in government, and that it is the government's responsibility to enforce this concept and to uphold the rights of the individual, as opposed to protecting groups. Such an idea is probably one of the greatest contribution the West has given to the world, yet it is often underrated by Westerners themselves.
I think I'm getting too political- why don't we see some pictures instead?
Political Science N146C. I think there were only about six or seven guys, the rest being girls. Most people came directly from Berkeley to South Africa.
This is the view of Cape Town from the Rhodes Memorial.
Here is the Rhodes Memorial. Cecil John Rhodes was the famous British imperialist who stated he would conquer the world for the British Empire. The country of Zimbabwe used to be called Rhodesia after him.
The lady in the middle is Ndobosutu, a 12-year old attending the University of Cape Town (UCT). She knew a lot about politics and was really smart.
Bhebhe was our main contact person at UCT- he arranged for our living quarters and food. Incidentally, he belongs to the 6-million strong Zulu nation, the largest African nation in South Africa.
Cape Town rests at the foot of Table Mountain. Also pictured here is the Castle of Good Hope, the oldest building in South Africa. It was built in the 1600s by the original Dutch colonists.
This is the main road where most of the government buildings, including Parliament are located. Currently, South Africa has three capitals: Cape Town (legislative), Pretoria (administrative), and Bloomfontaen (judicial). However, they will all be consolidated into one capital at Cape Town.
This is the President's house. The current President of South Africa is Thabo Mbeki who succeeded Mandela. He is most known for being supportive of free market policies and opposing the old revolutionary guard of the ANC which advocated socialism.
Like most of the former British colonies, South Africa features a Parliament.
This is when we met Andrew Feinstein, an ANC Member of Parliament (no relation to our Dianne Feinstein). He told us about his involvement in the struggle against apartheid as well as his open economy ideas.
Professor Price, James Selfe, a Democrat Party Member of Parliament, and myself. The DP used to be the only anti-apartheid party in Parliament during the apartheid years, but after the fall of apartheid they joined with the remnants of the apartheid regime to form the Democratic Alliance, the main opposition to the ANC today.
Helen Suzman, the founder of the DP and its main representative in Parliament during the apartheid years. She opposed apartheid saying that it had no place in a liberal democratic country. She is now in her eighties and has since retired from politics. The current leader is Tony Leon, a lawyer who took over the party after the fall of apartheid.
This is the administrative building for the former prison of Robben Island, the place where most of the political prisoners (including Mandela) were incarcerated. The island is now a great tourist place.
This man was a former prisoner at Robben Island. He was not a member of the ANC or the more radical Pan African Congress (PAC); he belonged to an insignificant group called the National Liberation Front. He told us that before they were caught, the members of the various resistance groups did not get along nor agree, but in prison they had to work together to survive.
The house where the most dangerous political prisoner was kept- and it was not Nelson Mandela. In the late 1950s, a lot of members of the ANC led by Robert Sobukwe left that organization to form the PAC. The PAC sharply disagreed with the ANC's concept of multiracialism (that the various races should form anti-apartheid parties and work together; multiracialism was scrapped in favor of nonracialism- that anyone should be able to join an anti-apartheid party regardless of race). The PAC proposed African nationalism; because blacks formed the majority, South Africa should belong to them. Robert Sobukwe was very popular and he called a general strike in the 1960s which paralyzed the country. He was thrown in jail but his term soon expired. The Parliament then did something extraordinary; it passed a law that stated that he, Robert Sobukwe would be confined to Robben Island indefinitely. There have been laws which regulated the lives of people of various races, religions, or "classes", but few, if any laws (none in the 20th century) have ever been used against one individual. Helen Suzman strongly opposed this law, and in the end she managed to supply Sobukwe with the house.
Table Mountain as seen from Robben Island.
The top of Table Mountain is almost like another world. From the top one can see Cape Town, the Stellenbosch Mountains, and the Cape itself. On a cloudy day, one gets the feeling he's on a floating island.
The beautiful Stellenbosch Valley, where the best wine from South Africa comes from. I got to taste a whole lot of red and white wines.
These three gentlemen are the local leaders of the farming community of Grabouw. They are also members of the South African Communist Party. Our class visited the factory which packages the apples that the community picks.
Cape Point: the southernmost tip of the peninsula where Cape Town is located. This end of the peninsula is a national park. It is very beautiful.
We saw baboons at Cape Point, including this mother and infant. Baboons are generally more aggressive than your run-of-the-mill simian; they shout and jump, and they may even throw things.
Another group of creatures which dwell in Cape Point are penguins! Unfortunately, in the northern part of the peninsula there was an oil spill, and a lot of penguins there got soaked. The penguins here are ok though.
Some friends I made in the former black township of Langa, near Cape Town.
The memorial for Hector Peterson, the first schoolchild killed in the 1976 Soweto Massacre. The massacre took place when police officers opened fire upon 10,000 schoolchildren and teachers protesting the requirement that all exams had to be conducted in Afrikaans, a language most Africans did not know and were not allowed to learn.
This is the famous snapshot of the dead body of Hector Peterson being carried. Both the young man carrying the body as well as the photographer are presumed dead. The young lady is still alive and she gave us the talk about the massacre when we visited Soweto.
This is the community center of the settlement of Oukasie. Once persecuted by the neighboring white communities, this settlement has made tremendous strides after the fall of apartheid. All the public property here was built by the community- no outside contractors.
A room in the Oukasie clinic. I was amazed how clean everything was, and how modern the equipment was.
The Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. This interesting obelisk was built in the 1930s as a monument to the Dutch colonists who journeyed from the original Cape Colony to settle the eastern parts of South Africa. It was also intended to be a symbol of Afrikaner unity.
This mural inside the Monument depicts Zulu warriors killing a Boer leader during the "Great Trek". To me, this mural symbolizes the great paranoia which characterized the Afrikaners from the colonial era through the apartheid regime. It is worth mentioning that during the Boer War fought between British forces and Boer guerrillas at the turn of the century, about 27,000 Boer women and children died in British concentration camps.
Some zebras at Pilansberg Game Reserve, near Sun City in the former homeland of Bophuthatswana.
Hippos at the same place.