Mzansi Toujours

After three months in South Africa, I am at a loss on how to best summarize my experience, what I’ve learned, and what has “stuck.” Perhaps more than anything else is the way that South Africa continues to defy categorical explanations. It is an incredibly old country; many claim that the San Bushmen living in the area are in fact the oldest form of Homo sapiens to walk the planet. Afrikaans and British history date all the way back to the 17th century. Yet, South Africa as we know it today is among the youngest nations in the world: a new, free South Africa has only been in place since 1994 at the end of the Apartheid regime. It faces the political and economic challenges of a country still trying to assure its footing in the socio-environment of a well-established, richly historical territory.

As I have explained in previous entries, South Africa lies at the threshold of development while also facing the extreme challenges of developing countries. Communities are grossly unequal from one to the next, and the spillover effects alter the underlying nature of all these communities. An entrenched white class of privilege lingers from the Apartheid era but a rising Black elite controls the reigns of political power. Affirmative action in employment strives to overturn deeply rooted racial inequalities by disadvantaging those historically advantaged.

The face of South African racial issues is so often painted in Black and White to the outside world, but the real dynamics are much more complicated than that. Cape Town’s coloured community is actually the majority group in the region, and their South African history also dates back centuries on the continent. In addition to the multiple ethnic distinctions among South African blacks, even Whites divide into Afrikaans and British camps. The mix of Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, Indians, British, Cape Malay, Ndabele, ex-pats, and refugees truly makes South Africa a rainbow nation with an insatiably pluralistic national identity.

Much like the United States, South Africa is a nation characterized by the juxtaposition of fervent conservatism and progressive liberalism. The country’s conservatism dates back to the separatist ideology of Apartheid but flourishes today with the enormous population of evangelical Christians. In more rural areas ethnic groups cling to age-old values. South Africa’s constitution, on the other hand, is one of the most progressive Constitution’s in the entire world. Minority groups of all shape, size, and form receive both legal protection and advocacy. South Africa is the only African state, for instance, which guarantees homosexuals complete legal protection. Still masses of the population are anti-Gay. Gay pride parades pass through downtown Cape Town while lesbians are murdered in townships and raped in order to “turn them straight.” The Constitution guarantees all individuals the right to access education, clean water, and housing. In praxis there are substantial gaps between these proclaimed rights and achieved ones, however. Many live their lives without proper housing and education.

To answer the question: “What is South Africa?” or even “What is South Africa like?” thus proves nearly impossible. It is a nation of nuance, diversity, history, and future. Who knows where South Africa will be in the next century? Their open door policy brings in thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, students, and laborers. From my own experience working at the Cape Town Refugee Centre I have witnessed first hand the rapidly changing dynamic of the Western Cape. It is not unlike New York City at the turn of the 20th century, I thought one day. People are pouring into the region and literally constructing its future socio-scape. Look how much the United States has changed over the past century and you can imagine what might be in store for South Africa. Adding 21st century globalization to the equation only further complicates the matter.

“Development” Boundaries and the Western Gaze

Note: This entry was originally written in April 2010.

Because South Africa cannot be neatly categorized as a “developed” country nor a “developing country,” its development-related challenges take on a completely different shape than both “First” and “Third” World counterparts. Take the Western Cape region as a case and point. The Cape Town city bowl, most of the Southern Suburbs, and other surrounding vicinity are considered to be “developed.” The City Bowl may not look like Athlone or Wynberg in terms of socio-economic status, but all these areas are composed of permanent infrastructure: housing, streets, shops, and schools. Gugulethu, Philippi, Mitchell’s Plain, Samora, Nyanga, Langa, and the numerous other townships that dot the area are “undeveloped” and “semi-developed” regions (“informal settlements” according to the preferred South African political discourse). Naturally, development initiatives focus on these township areas as opposed to those other areas, which are comparatively well off. It is not uncommon for policies, mentalities, and human beings to segregate these socio-spaces in a sort of de facto lingering apartheid. Worlds run parallel, “developed” and “undeveloped,” within one country.

Their geographic proximity and intertwined political reality limits this parallelism, however, particularly in light of the New South Africa. Humans cross development boundaries incessantly, even several times during a single trajectory. Increased interaction can sow more business opportunity and mutual cooperation, but it also can also create conflict and resentment. The fissures burden “developed” areas with many problematic spillover effects usually characteristic of more “underdeveloped” areas, while “underdeveloped” areas have access to additional infrastructure within the span of a brief commute.

One major side effect that plagues “developed” areas is a high crime rate. The lack of socio-economic opportunities in neighbouring areas leaves individuals struggling to make a living, and for those that choose illegal means to do so; the developed areas are clear, accessible, and profitable targets. Cape Town is definitely a hotbed of petty crime. Eight different Connect-123 interns have been mugged since arrival, albeit non-violently, but thieved nonetheless. Cape Town’s big, colourful buildings and trendy cafés give the illusion of developed security, but they are in fact penetrable. “Development” literally bumps up against “underdevelopment,” leaving “developed” areas prone to the same public security concerns as “underdeveloped ones.” Yesterday, another intern’s laptop was stolen right out from in front of her while she worked at a chic café’s sidewalk-front countertop. The illusion of development oft leaves one feeling secure while in fact security remains an underlying risk. Proverbial “underdevelopment” reached right over the weak, permeable boundaries between these domains and drove this point into the ground.

On the flip side of these boundary crossings is my own experience as foreign white development worker. I live in the developed City Bowl area of Cape Town but commute to work each day to a semi-developed lower middle class suburb. As I traverse the path from the Wynberg train station to my work building, I pass through an enormous, informal marketplace. There is an especially high proportion of foreigners among the vendors and the overall feel of the area is quite exotic. I can’t help to feel as I pass through that my own presence constitutes another boundary crossing and my Western gaze an enacted visualization of power relations. Met eye contact has often returned a “what do you want?” sort of look in response, and a few times I have even been harassed with a “hey, whitie!” provocation. Hop on the train and you’re again in another world. I suppose that’s South Africa for you.

Which abuse???

Note: This was originally written April 2010. I am updating missed entries into this blog.

There have recently been quite a few refugee women coming into the CTRC office complaining of serious domestic abuse. Our NGO’s executive director normally intervenes immediately in each of these cases. All of the most recent claims have come from Rwandan and Eastern Congolese women, however, and they have all been Kiswahili speakers. For this reason I have played a fairly significant role in these cases. After our director completed the initial interviews, she gave me the clients’ files so that I might hear out their Swahili-based narratives. This has no doubt proved a serious challenge on a number of levels.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, my ability to listen to holistic Swahili narratives and follow all the details is not yet 100% there. I have struggled to understand all the details of clients’ stories, though for the most part have been able to understand the story itself. Since the matters at concern relate to the serious accusation of domestic abuse, my lack of acquired details worried me quite a bit. I developed a two-prong coping mechanism in order to perform this auditory duty to the best of my ability. Firstly, I ask each domestic abuse client to recount her story as slowly and carefully as possible. Slowing down the speed of Swahili helps me to pick up more words than I might at a normal flow. Secondly, I ask far more questions than I would otherwise. This ensures that I am accurately understanding who did what, where, why and in what way.

A second major challenge has been the gender dynamic. I’ve felt as though domestically abused women seem rather uncomfortable sharing the details of their abuse with a young, white, man. The director of our NGO warned me about this ahead of time, explaining that the countries from which many of these women hail stigmatize talking about such marital issues with someone of the opposite sex. Even in the face of excessively violent abuse, wives and girlfriends often exhibit a culturally bound, paradoxically loyal allegiance to their husbands and boyfriends. Talking about such personal issues with a different member of the opposite sex is taboo.

As in many other domains of my work, there also looms the ever-present specter of resettlement claims. It is not unheard of for wives to put themselves in situations where they might be abused so that they can manipulate the injuries as political capital. That is not to say that domestic abuse in any way, shape, or form is, or should, ever be tolerated. It is rather, as my director explained to me, the way in which some of these women appear to “cry wolf” for which we as refugee development workers must be wary. If a woman claims she is being abused, then we immediately step in and ask her if she has gone to the police. She should rightfully escape a violent private sphere, and it is our job at the CTRC to ensure that any immediate assistance we have available be issued. We offer to take the-woman-in-question to an available shelter, phone the necessary legal authorities, and provide trauma relief therapy references as deemed necessary.

I realized that there is hence an enormous gap between social issues for [South African] citizens and for refugees. Whenever a refugee becomes involved with a particular social issue; be it lack of work, domestic abuse, a broken law, a housing crunch, or a need for education; the entire social schema becomes overtly politicized. Refugees often fall between the cracks of the South African justice and social service systems; jurisdiction over their actions is frustratingly fuzzy. Some blame domestic abuses in refugee households on “backwards” foreign cultures. The results of said cases cause questions of resettlement, [re-]integration, and repatriation to reappear at the forefront of socio-consciousness. One must transcend the matter at hand to evaluate what is really at play and what is really at stake. A case of domestic abuse is never just a case of domestic abuse. The challenge lies in remembering that it is, at the same time, domestic abuse, which must be accounted for.