So today I took a half a day off from the many exploratory adventures that I have had over the past ten days. I had not stopped to think for an extended period of time since getting off the plane, maybe even getting on the plane, and I made the conscious decision that this was something I must do…oh but then I went to the beach to watch a pretty sunset.

Tuesday and Wednesday however were action packed days. I and 11 other people on my program decided to visit the wine country of South Africa: Stellenbosch. The calmness, beauty and purity of the town reminded me of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. But I have learned that in a country with such a volatile and complex history, you can’t accept anything at face value. Everything in Stellenbosch was white, the people, the cars, the beautiful buildings, everything. The official language remains Afrikaans (a Dutch language adopted by South Africa under oppressive, racist, Dutch rule) though the dominance of the language was supposed to fade out of the country when Apartheid ended. While playing Frisbee in open fields, walking around the campus of a breathtaking university, hiking up the most beautiful hills to catch a panoramic view of several stunning vineyards, it was easy to forget that relaxation was equivalent to lack of progress, and more literally to racism and social hierarchy. It is not possible to appreciate all that this town has to offer without recognizing the glaring problems. The juxtaposition of experiences is starting to make me realize how much I want to understand the context of everything around me. I want to understand how Stellenbosch can be what it is and be a ten minute drive from Khayelitsha, a black township that spans a few square miles and has an estimated 500,00 to 1 million residents.

From afar the houses look to be made out of a variety of materials including tin, cardboard, cloth etc and are extremely close together. There is a lot of trash everywhere and constant human traffic.. and I only saw this from the highway. There is such clear inequality that it seems is so often ignored. I have only been in this country for a little over a week and I am fully aware that I have no right to make moral judgments on a culture, a country, a government that I have no knowledge of, but I do think that the bizarre apathy that I encountered in Stellenbosh seems to be a present sentiment keeping Apartheid alive even though it ended 15 years ago. I am starting to see why it takes a much larger amount of time to destroy ideology and subsequently resource distribution and ingrained prejudices than it does to simply say that an oppressive political system no longer governs a society.

Some history taken from wikipedia about townships in general and Khayelitsha (sorry if that insults the academic process I am supposed to embrace after being in college but deal with it):

During the Apartheid Era blacks were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as "white only" and forced to move into townships. Legislation that enabled the Apartheid government to do this included the Group Areas Act. Forced removal from city centers to townships has continued in post-apartheid South Africa. The difference is that under apartheid all black people faced forced removals to townships while now it is only the poor living in shack settlements that face eviction to townships on the peripheries of cities. In Cape Town and Durban this has given rise to mass resistance.

The Group Areas Act, passed in the 1950s, prohibited Blacks from living in the cities. The discrimination and black population control by the apartheid regime did not prevent blacks from settling in the outskirts of Cape Town. After the scrapping of pass laws in 1987 many blacks, mainly Xhosas, moved into areas around Cape Town in search of work. By this time many blacks were already illegally settled in townships (black neighborhood) like Nyanga and Crossroads. As the black population grew, the apartheid regime sought to solve the problem by establishing new black neighborhoods.

So I guess this is where I don’t have the right to have an opinion because I am clearly infusing American and I suppose Jewish ideals into a situation that is built upon separate norms. But I think on some level I am approaching this from a very universal human perspective. Regardless of the circumstances that bring about the racism that is becoming more and more apparent here, I have trouble understanding why it is so hard for people accept this. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, as an equal. And there are so many different levels upon which that dignity needs to materialize.

SIDEBAR: I am currently reading Jonathan Sacks’ book “The Dignity of Difference” which is definitely influencing a lot of feelings I have been having about using my own societal and religious norms to analyze the norms of different cultures and societies. The book is definitely offering another important perspective to consider within all of these experiences (great recommendation Chippy).

It baffles me how Stellenbosch and Kahyelitshe can be neighboring areas. I know that in other countries there are economically diverse areas, but not to this extent. Not only is the economic gap huge in these areas, but there seems to be such a lack of recognition of these differences. Society here seems so hierarchal, but worse people seem content with vertical relationships. I feel as though I have encountered this apathy before, but I have never witnessed its ramifications so closely…and that was only from the safe distance of the highway. I need to know more. I need to make sure that I in no way contribute to that sense of apathy and ignorance.

As amazing as South Africa is, I must say, much of my wonderful, beautiful experiences are constantly juxtaposed with moments of understanding and of anger toward the divisions that are negatively impacting so many people. I embrace this challenge, this discomfort.

In Jonathan Sacks book he discusses how Western societies polarize the concept of charity and justice. In our world, if we have money and give some to a worthy cause we deem it charity; we deem ourselves helpers, as though we have taken it upon ourselves to do a good deed. The word justice infers responsibility to a worthy cause, yet we normally do not place this responsibility on our shoulders. We see helping those less fortunate, those below us as recipients of our good well. Sacks says that this cannot be the norm, for charity and justice are one in the same. They create the idea of tzedakah which suggests that every human is responsible for another, which suggests that giving money, time or some other form of assistance to those with fewer resources than ourselves must be seen as an obligation in order for us to make the world work in the cyclical way that it should, in a way that encourages compensating for weakness by having access to others’ strength. We all have something to gain from each other, the giver just as much as the recipient. Most of you have probably heard me say this quote before but I feel as though it is quite relevant here.

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

That in my mind sums up the necessary difference between charity and justice. It is not about helping but rather working together and learning and gaining from each others own experiences. If we acknowledge each persons experience we acknowledge their right to all the resources necessary to survive, and can therefore start to think about how t equitably distribute them.

Ok well I am off tomorrow to climb a huge mountain.

South African Ulpan Word of the Day:

Jersey – noun – pronounced jer-ZEY – wool sweater

Example Sentence:

Travis brought three jerseys with him to Antarctica because it was very cold there.

Yea, I am totally improving.

Shabbat Shalom!