Week 2: Exploring Identity by Carly

By Carly Dillis

A view of Cape Town from historic Wale St, a community that
has historically been predominantly Muslim.

Over the past week, our group has been exploring Cape Town and different parts of the Eastern Cape. Throughout this time, we have been learning the story of South Africa through the people in these places. Our learning in this program is designed to be through experience, including that of others. Thus, we rely greatly on shared personal narratives to humanize and contextualize the more traditional learning that we have been engaging with in museums and historical sites. Simultaneously, we are also navigating our own identities in a new country and learning who we are and how we relate to the world.

Portraits of Steve Biko in front of the museum.

For our first day in the Eastern Cape, we drove from Port Elizabeth to King Williams town to visit the Steve Biko museum. The museum was about the anti-Apartheid struggle, but more so it was about Steve Biko as a person. The museum helped bring a human energy to the history of Apartheid. As Apartheid is such a violent system, it begins to feel the opposite of human. Therefore, reminding ourselves of the humans involved is a much-needed facet of a complete education in the subject. We have also found this human element at the Red Location Lodge, a women’s co-op that we have been staying in for our time in Port Elizabeth. The co-op is a women’s empowerment and support group with about a dozen members. They have been sharing their stories with us as well and showing us a more everyday type of resistance in their solidarity.

As we move onto Cape Town, we again get a new perspective on the history of South Africa and Apartheid. We took the ferry to Robben Island, the site of the prison in which Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Robert Sobukwe were held during the anti- Apartheid struggle. Our tour guide was a former prisoner at Robben Island and was able tell the story of prison life from his authentic experience there. He gave us a sense of what it felt like to be a prisoner under Apartheid and to be taken away from society. The story of Apartheid is one that is still being written. As the first democratic elections took place in 1994, the official era of Apartheid is over, but it is still very fresh in the minds and lives of the people of South Africa.

A collection of the original signs of District Six
before the Apartheid government tore down all
houses. Behind the signs, there are also handmade
quilts that depict everyday life in District Six. 

 We were also able to tour the District Six Museum. Our tour guide’s name was Noor and he was born in District Six. He was the third generation to raise his family in his home and was forcibly evicted when the area was declared “for whites only.” He watched his house be torn down and had to begin a new life away from the community which had become a part of his identity. He told his story with enthusiasm and passion, which gave us a sense of his greater self and identity and made his story exceptionally human. District Six and Noor’s story are a microcosm of Apartheid and help us understand how the events and policies enacted by the government affected everyday people such as Noor.

Learning through a personal lens helps one to internalize the curriculum and understand its importance. It also helps to decolonize our education by diversifying our knowledge source and helping us to be critical of institutions of knowledge. It has also helped us to understand our own places in the struggle, as we are connected to this history, and all histories, by our existence in a globalized world. 

Week One: Reflections on the Motherland

by Chiara White-Mink & Anne-Claire Merkle-Scotland

Apartheid ended 22 years ago when the first democratic elections were held in 1994, the same year I was born. For a nation that experienced so much horror in throughout apartheid these elections marked a new era of possibility and prosperity. That hope was shared throughout the world, when the message of a newly united nation travelled half-way across the world to the classrooms and schools I attended. However as residents and students in the United States, we should be well aware that change, especially social change, may take years and even generations to truly happen. Therefore, we were exposed to the realities of post-apartheid South Africa and the continuously growing economic challenges and disparities faced by South Africans, particularly the black citizens still facing severe effects from Apartheid.

Apartheid was crippling for black families, communities, and individuals by destroying communities and separating blacks from whites and sending them to specified “townships”areas of land outside of the cities where black people were confined to. Accessing medical care, education, and transportation cost money, and all the resources designated to blacks were far inferior in quality to the resources offered to white people only a few miles away. Blacks could not travel outside of their designated community, as well as work, attend school, or do almost anything without a permit.

Our current educational practices are a reflection of eurocentricity, intrinsically perpetuating the marginalization of communities of color and rendering us invisible in educational spheres. Blackness is positioned as the antithesis to whiteness and is thus implicitly framed as deficient and pathological. This is absolutely not indicative of Paulo Freire’s vision of education as a tool for liberation and social change. Instead, this exhibits an immensely problematic model of education that enables the success of the privileged at the expense of the oppressed. I, unfortunately, was unable to conceptualize my educational experiences as such until I began my collegiate career. I was provided with the space to critically reflect on my schooling, paying close attention to how aspects of my identity (such as race, gender, class, etc.) impacted what privileges and opportunities I was afforded and what I was deprived of. As a Black woman, I was faced with the harsh reality of oppression on the basis of race and gender. The most potent example of deprivation I can think of is the lack of culturally relevant material/the inability of educational spaces to centralize African-Indigenous belief systems as a method to empower students of color and expose white students to an undervalued world view; and subsequently, the expectation for students of color to assimilate to hegemonic notions about success.

Thus, my trip to the continent of Africa signifies my journey to increased critical consciousness, psychological emancipation and self-love, a revolutionary act. Education is intricately connected to our sense of humanity and I desperately sought an educational outlet that not only recognized, but honored my humanity. I concluded that this program attempted to a foster a space grounded in anti-oppressive ideology and actions that reflect intentionality and purpose. The first week of the program was spent in Johannesburg, South Africa where we went on various field trips to become critically acquainted with the country. I was deeply disturbed by the failure of my educational systems to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the struggle for liberation here and in the United States, or rather acknowledge the plight of people of color beyond the United States, period. It is also important to highlight the manner in which information is presented as well. Schools, as I have articulated above, typically convey information in immensely problematic ways (the dominant narrative), often excluding vital narratives and potent perspectives. Thus, I felt beyond privileged to hear about events here in South Africa from the voices of people directly involved, because I know that my educational spaces are lacking. One thing in particular I have been marinating on is the role of ordinary people in worldwide liberation struggles. This stood out to me on our visits to the Hector Pieterson museum and Orange Farm Human Rights Advice Centre. At Orange Farm, we had the opportunity hear from people on the micro level about issues that impacted their community. For once, leaders who rose to national prominence were decentralized and it was more about the work ordinary people are doing to provide for their communities. They actually shared their thoughts on one leader we have all been conditioned to love—Nelson Mandela. I am not attempting to refute his importance or discredit his accomplishments, but I was forced to critically analyze Mandela in a way like never before—in a way that countered the dominant narrative surrounding his political reign. The Hector Pieterson museum was especially interesting because we got to speak directly to Antoinette Sithole, a key player in the June 16, 1976 Soweto Uprising that resulted in the death of her brother. It is about time that we recognize the bravery and resilience of everyday people who are not necessarily internationally known or praised. 

Through visits to communities such as Orange Farm, located about an hour outside of Johannesburg, we saw and heard about the enormous problems within education and employment that poor communities are still facing even 22 years after the country was supposedly desegregated. With little resources offered from the government, schools continue to suffer from overcrowding and lack of materials, while adults and young adults are facing high rates of unemployment and lack of opportunities. Speaking to citizens, we learned how frustrated black South Africans are with the lack of economic mobility since the end of Apartheid. Still stuck in an oppressive and vicious cycle of poverty, many citizens have given up on expecting the government to create real effective change after so many years of what many view as false promises. One of our speakers Molefi Mataboge said it best when he stated “When politicians talk, we must listen not to what they’re saying, but to what they’re not saying.”

Coming to South Africa, I was expecting to see the land of Nelson Mandela and an integrated society somewhat free from the obstructions of apartheid, and constantly moving forward to maintain that promise of democracy shared throughout the world for years after apartheid ended. My experiences this week however showed me how much farther this great nation needs to go to truly see economic prosperity and opportunity for all of its citizens, and the serious changes that need to be made in order to make this happen.

The honorable Steve Biko once said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” I have recognized that education thus far has been the practice of domination—keeping me ignorant, silent, and perpetuating social inequities. I am here to build upon what I have been unlearning in the U.S. and am ready to take back my mind from the oppressor, by any means necessary.