Apartheid is where it belongs — in a museum

My itinerary noted the day was one of the coveted free days on my trip. I did not have to travel, there was not a game to go see, in fact there was nothing planned for June 19.

It was in that absence of activities that I decided to go to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. This country, and the city of Gold in particular, has a dark history of racism and segregation that South Africans tell me is still being cleansed from society.

Apartheid is at the fulcrum of the past that South Africa proudly displays in history museums as opposed to its statutes.

As someone who was born after the most violent demonstrations against the practice, in kindergarten when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and nine-years old when South Africa held its first democratic election
Apartheid was an opaque ideal that I never understood.

Saturday’s trip to a museum depicting South Africa’s inhumane divisions clarified all the news reports, books and other information I consumed about apartheid growing up.

It was a 150 minutes of balancing stoic emotions with utter shock at the 40 years of minority rule, the undercover murders of political protestors, the division of communities, the reservation of well-paying jobs for whites only and the list of 148 laws the country established between 1948 and 1990 directly, or indirectly, segregating the people and resources of South Africa.

Immediately visitors are reminded of the divisions that gripped South Africa. Every entrant is given a black card with white words that says either “white” or “non-white” in English and Afrikaans. Those cards determined which entrance someone entered the museum.

The cards are given to entrants at random: hence the five-minute walk through the entry being the only time in my life I have been classified white!

Pictures were not allowed inside the museum. People broke that rule, especially to take a picture of the Johannesburg skyline in the background.

(The only time I allowed myself a chuckle during my afternoon trip was when I took a picture of a group of six people—four white people, a black man and an Asian woman arms locked and smiling—with the Joburg skyline in the background.)

The museum provided a 15-minute video of the history of South Africa, which served as a backdrop for how a distinct minority could rule union so forcefully.

From there, I spent the next two hours reviewing newspaper clippings, video clips, pictures and other artifacts from the apartheid era. Unable to take pictures I scribbled as much as I could feverishly in a notebook so I would etch my own history about apartheid.

The stain of apartheid is still being undone. Until it is, the legacy of such an inhumane practice can be reviewed in a museum — a place befitting the past.

The Youth of a Nation

Apartheid had devastating effects on all elements of South African life. Many people lost their rights, freedoms, livelihoods and even lives as they struggled to overthrow this divisive and racist form of governance.

One of the most telling such instances took place in Soweto on this date in 1976. Scores of youths, school-aged children, were killed as they protested apartheid and their requirement to learn Afrikaans. To remember their commitment to “the struggle” South Africa considers June 16 Youth Day.

It’s a holiday that caught many foreigners completely by surprise. But as President Jacob Zuma said in a nationally televised speech today, the World Cup allows the country to share this unique day in its history with the world.

Every country knows that its prosperity is tied up in the fortunes of its youth. For South Africa a country less than a generation into democratic rule the youth take on a broader significance to the health of the republic. People and politicians agree about this, more so the people than the politicos.

During breakfast Wednesday morning in Port Elizabeth Linda and Joe, a couple on holiday from Johannesburg, spoke about the importance of youth and how much South Africa has changed in just 16 years.

South Africa still has its issues, but the vacationing couple was insistent that so much has changed since democracy usurped divisiveness here. Maybe South Africans are playing nice for the tourists, but there is not as much readily apparent division here as there is in the United States. Linda and Joe buttressed that observation with their comments over omelets and toast.

Sports have brought this country together even more.

Sports always have a way of bringing people together, but this World Cup will likely have more of a lasting impact here, even if the Bafana Bafana don’t qualify for the knockout stages, than victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup (think of the movie Invictus) or winning the 1996 African Cup of Nations on home soil.

So what does soccer, and its long history of inclusiveness, have to do with Youth Day?

Wednesday night in Durban a little boy, no older than four, was dancing and playing his vuvuzela. No one bothered to mention or care that he looked any different from them — with the exception his Bafana Bafana shirt was smaller.