What I learned from “Joe”

The summer of 2007, I visited Johannesburg, South Africa and I learned a couple of things from “Joe.”  The first thing that I learned upon arriving in Johannesburg was that the warnings about crime were not exaggerated, but beyond this I learned quite a few things from Joe. 

Joe was our driver while we were visiting the city.  Our gated hotel, the Peech, recommended using a driver and Joe, a native South African, was a contracted driver for the hotel.  Interestingly, only after the end of apartheid was he allowed to operate his self-employed business in Melrose. 

So, unlike universities in the United States and Europe, access to the University of Wits is controlled by security.  I asked Joe, “so, we have to go through security to get to the University.”  Joe explained that there had been many campus crimes, including crimes involving vehicles.

When Joe was younger, we was not even allowed to attend the University of Wits.  There were very few schools for blacks and those schools were inferior.

As Joe was driving us around, I kept seeing signs, offering to help people who have been black listed.  My thoughts were that this related to apartheid … people who targeted by the previous system of government, but no.  Being black listed refers to people who are equivalent to being bankrupted.  After the end of apartheid, the government was wrong-headed in providing loans to almost anyone who wanted them.  The result, people could not make their loan payments and defaulted.

While Joe was driving us around, he told us that he lived in Soweto.  I learned that Soweto is diverse, but there is a lot of black on black crime and that there is a lot of envy among residents in the area who believe that some people are uppity and deserve “to lose” their property.

While Joe readily acknowledged the problems and lingering effects of apartheid, he also recognized the work that he and fellow South Africans must do to continue healing their country.  I probably learned much more riding with Joe than any other encounters.

Jo’burg, a truly wired city

June 2007, I visited Johannesburg, South Africa to present a paper on culture and medical education at Wits University.  I was “culturally shocked” and found the lingering and persistent effect of Apartheid pulsing throughout the city and its character.

We didn’t stay exactly in Jo’burg, as the citizens call the city, we were in one of the “upscale” suburbs, Melrose, at a boutique hotel.  The hotel was nice and the staff were friendly and helpful, but it did seem to attract a somewhat pretentious crowd, especially for an event the hotel was holding; however, that is a tangent.

Since we arrived to Jo’burg late, it was not until the next morning that we realized how wired the city is … wired in the sense of barbed wired and security.  One of the things that we like to do is take a walk after dinner … not advisable here.  I don’t even know if the hotel staff would have allowed us.  So, the next day as we are out with our driver … yes, the hotel has a contract with a driver to transport guest around, because it is too unsafe to walk.  We did not see any buildings that did not have barbed wire or jagged glass atop their gates and barriers.  We passed large beautiful homes that were enclosed like prisons and secured with barbed wire.

Then, there are personal security firms that provide escorts and security officers.  Our first inkling of the security concerns was our hotel with was gated and manned with a private security officer.  I thought, “I thought I got a nice hotel in a good part of town, why do they need this type of protection.”  One night, we went out for dinner via our driver and noticed that many of the whites walking and dining had black escorts, while the blacks did not.  I thought, how interesting.

Last word, despite the vast disparity between the wealthy and the poor in the suburbs, they both are prisoners trapped in the status quo.  The whites, typically the wealthy cannot or will not leave and threaten their lifestyle, so they leave in fortresses, prisoners to safety issues.  The blacks who seem to make up the majority of the poor do not really have anywhere else to go either and many consider Jo’burg home, as do the whites.  These two cultures are like binary stars, circling each other with one feeding off the other.

JNB … the worst airport in the world! Part III

I have been very critical of Johannesburg airport and they deserve it, but the problems with their airport runs much deeper than confusion, lack of organization, and rude incompetent employees.

While in South Africa, I learned that the country has a quota policy for employment where blacks are at the top of the quota system, followed by colors [which is not considered pejorative like in the United States], and finally whites.  The intent of this policy is to reverse and remedy the generations of apartheid.  So, what the country is experiencing is a degree of white flight by whites who can leave or don’t have so much invested in the country that they don’t want to leave or don’t have to leave.

So, a lot of blacks who were denied equal education are getting jobs that they are not qualified to do.  Not jobs that they can’t do, but jobs they have limited training to do.  Does this mean that the country should do nothing, but displacing whites before blacks can be trained is not the answer.  The result is a brain drain … a la Zimbawe. 

The airport is just one example of the disastrous effects of displacing capable workers with people who have not been trained.  This also further divide people.  The quota system also has the effect of creating a feeling of entitlement.  The majority of the airport employees that we encountered were rude, disinterested in what they were doing, or seemed completely overwhelmed.

I certainly think that South Africa should remedy the legacy of apartheid, but is this the way?

Contradictions, Conflict, and the Legacy of Apartheid — Cape Town, South Africa

Visiting Cape Town, South Africa was one of the most conflicted trips I have taken to date. The country is beautiful, has a thriving wine industry, has a diverse mix of cultures and ethnicities, and is one of the more stable countries on the continent. However, the entire time that I spent in the country, I could not help but notice the legacy of apartheid and what I perceived as troubling policies of the ANC, the governing party, which became the governing party in 1994 when Nelson Mandela won the presidency, finally ending the practice of apartheid.

I think that it would be hard to find anyone who does not acknowledge that apartheid was socially brutal, if not physically so. Before we traveled to South Africa, I wondered how we would be treated as African-Americans (blacks) from the United States. I didn’t think that we would be treated poorly or thrown in jail or experience racial slurs. I was interested in the non-verbal clues and there were non-verbal clues … except they were mostly from the black South Africans. Now, I am not trying to be grossly anti-politically correct when I say black South Africans, but the first thing that we learned was that South Africans consider the country as being comprised of three major groups: blacks (members of indigenous tribes), coloreds (multi-racial and ethnic groups, as well as Indians), and whites.

The whites were overall the friendliest group with whom we interacted. The coloreds were moderately pleasant; however, the blacks were not friendly and often did not even acknowledge our presence. This was the experience across all encounters, whether we were on an organized tour, shopping, or taking one of our few and limited walks. I understand that South Africa has a complex history of race relations and we were probably clearly identifiable as not being South African blacks by our dress and clearly by our accent [I'm from Georgia (United States) and I sound like it].

While we were in Cape Town, we had a wonderful guide, Hendrien, whom we enjoyed talking to very much and became comfortable talking candidly about apartheid and ANC policies. The way that I would describe our conversations with white South Africans is that they allowed themselves to be blind to the horrors of apartheid, and they largely credit Nelson Mandela with shepherding a smooth transition from apartheid to a democracy.

The consistent criticism of the current ANC government is that they have abandoned path Mandela laid by instituting an open immigration policy [perhaps, in the hopes of maintaining a permanent majority] and implementing a quota system for employment and resources.

1. The immigration policy is stressing the country’s infrastructure and purse, because many of the immigrants are unskilled and become a surplus in the labor market.  Because there are no jobs for these immigrants, they become dependent on the government and contribute to the spread of “informal settlements,” temporary houses or more appropriate, shacks.  Additionally, this creates a public health problem as well, because these “informal settlements” often do not have running water or bathrooms and become sanitation nightmares.
2. The quota system may have more of a negative impact than the open immigration policy where businesses are required to hire a “representative” number of blacks, coloreds, and whites.  The impact is quad-fold:  unqualified people are hired (sure, this happened under apartheid, but the question is magnitude); quotas create a sense of entitlement (I deserve this job); qualified whites are leaving the country in mass, since they represent the smallest group and subsequently receive the least number of jobs; the practice also raises the question of fairness and retribution.

Some whites feel that the ANC has abandoned Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation where you remember and acknowledge your sins and crimes, but move forward toward unity.

While I did not see any obvious racial tension, I sensed that the country is at a crossroad where it will become mired in conflict and decline or it will focus on unity while remedying the legacy of apartheid through education and economic opportunity.  Undoing the damage of apartheid where black self worth was significantly damaged will take time and can not be repaired overnight or necessarily in a decade.

Take a look at my Cape Town photographs.