Black Culture, White Culture

“Look at all those White people! That’s Cape Town for you!” wrote one friend as a caption to a beach picture I recently posted to facebook. “Cape Town’s not real Africa…it’s like Europe!” claimed a few other people whom I have met here recently. Two Afrikaner men from Pretoria made this claim at a pub after a rugby game in the Newlands area of the city. A Zimbabwean student here uttered virtually the same comment within the same week timeframe.

They definitely have a point. Cape Town is a hotbed for white, South African culture. Go to many of the beaches and you will find almost exclusively white people. Go to one of the many trendy restaurants, and the scene will look comparable. At the Kirstenbosch Gardens concert I attended a few weeks ago, out of a crowd of a few thousand, I only noticed about five Blacks. Even at a local screening of “Invictus;” a[n American] film exhibited from an outside perspective to a South African audience about their own triumph over apartheid and foundation of racial harmony; the attending audience included almost only white people. It is fairly easy to see how Cape Town gets the reputation that it does.

I don’t think the city warrants it, however. Anyone who honestly believes that Cape Town is a “white” city has slipped shallowly through, missed the “real” Cape Town, and it’s a “shame, man” (South African slang). I’m not privy to any official sociological data, but if I were to estimate, I would conjecture that the city’s Black and Coloured populations grossly outnumber the white population. The City Bowl’s downtown district is often thought of as one of White privilege, but the streets are bustling with the popping sounds of Xhosa, hijab-clad immigrant women, innumerable Coloured individuals, and but a relevant minority of white passersby. Mini buses tear around most city corners and multi-ethnic vendors sell from block-after-block. This is only the downtown area.

The city area of Cape Town is dwarfed in comparison to the Southern Suburbs, Northern Suburbs, and Cape Flats areas. Of course there are well-to-do suburbs such as Rondebosch, the liberal student haven of Observatory, and the upper-middle class Kenilworth. Anyone who thinks Cape Town is a “white” city however, hasn’t been to Wynberg. They haven’t been to Salt River or to Athlone. They definitely haven’t been to Khayelitsha, to Philippi, to Maitland, or to Mitchell’s Plain. They haven’t seen Blue Waters and they probably haven’t even been to Woodstock. These are not merely what we Americans would term ethnic ghettos but enormous parcels of land home to significant portions of the city’s population.

Historically, the Western Cape was home to South Africa’s White and Coloured populations. The New South Africa ushered in an era of migration to the region, and today the influence of Blacks, Coloureds, Indians, and foreigners is enormous. It is not only influential, in fact, but constitutive. These communities form the crux of Cape Town’s informal markets, labor force, and residential areas. Removing their presence would not only be noticeable; the entire city would cease to function. Again, this is statistically a majority community. Unfortunately, many are subsumed by Whites in public visibility due to their status as proletarians. The working class is pushed to the margins of collective consciousness in a truly Marxist fashion. Often racial conflict is merely a discussion of class conflict in disguise. Despite the socio-economic implications, Non-Whites play a substantial role in the area’s socio-cultural geopolitics.

Perhaps many Black South Africans can either not afford or are not interested in attending the concert of a white, Afrikaner alternative rock band at traditionally White Kirstenbosch. Perhaps White South Africans fail to venture en masse outside their comfortable, racially inscribed loci. In either case, these instances of de facto neo-apartheid do not characterize the entire city. Traveling down popular Long Street and branding Cape Town a “white city” is no more accurate than visiting the North Shore of Chicago and deciding likewise. Even this is not a perfect analogy, though, as the Cape Town area’s population dynamic is overwhelmingly non-White. While the legacy of Colonial façades, White restaurants, beaches, concerts, and movie theatres might lead one to deem Cape Town not “Authentically African,” (and yes, of course Cape Town is not the same “Africa” as other areas) these are indeed façades on multiple levels. The dawn of the New South Africa has catapulted the Western Cape into ethnic dynamism, and its racial branding lies upon the delimitating forced perspective of the beholder. I won’t even delve into the impact of the 150,000 + refugees living in the area. Despite my skepticism of the term’s contrived positive connotation, if one wants to experience the “Rainbow Nation,” it’s here.

Leisure Update

Hello, all! Since my last several updates have been more “official” reviews of my actual internship work / pertinent refugee issues, I thought I would take this entry to discuss a few of the incredible leisurely experiences I’ve had as of late…….That is the beautifully disgusting quality so characteristic of South Africa. Whereas my daytime work is comparable to international development jobs one might experience in other African nations, Latin America, or to my parents’ dismay, Bangladesh, during nights and weekends I am free to indulge in all the “cush” touristy opportunities that this area also has to offer: outdoor summer concerts, wine tastings, just about every extreme support one could imagine, and Euro-style bars and cafés. What makes these activities both interesting and guilty are the fissures between the two worlds.

Example: There is an area not too far away from here known as St. George’s Mall. It’s a pedestrian throughway with stone streets, oodles of cafés, stylish boutiques, and outdoor atmosphere. More than any other area I have seen here in Cape Town, it looks and feels like you are in Europe. There are even a few fountains and French-style kiosks / street monuments. Yet, there are also loads of informal stalls, beggars, and “African” proletarians serving the establishments. In fact, it almost feels like the “new” Europe of immigrants more than either the romantically conceptualized versions of Europe or Africa. And beggars in this country are RESILIENT….let me tell you. They will come right up to your table where you are sitting and assuredly ask for money. If you are walking down the street, they will approach you in the same manner without taking no for an answer. If you ignore them, they follow you the entire distance continuously hollering at you. If you say “Sorry” forcefully and pick up your pace, they will pick up their pace right along with you instead of taking the hint. Thank goodness I am doing something “helpful towards humanity” during the daytime or I would feel QUITE guilty for not giving the beggars any money. I apologize that this paragraph is littered with “quotation marks;” I just feel like I am walking on eggshells in explaining some of these topics so briefly.



That was a bit of a tangent anyways. So back to my activities! I have made TWO different excursions out into the proximal winelands thus far. That equals approximately 9 different wineries and probably 40-some samples of wine varieties. Wine culture is so amazing. I can’t fathom anything more relaxing than an afternoon of casual wine sipping set against the faint, nearly stationary sway of the vines and the jovial pulsation of rays overhead. That sounded forcibly poetic, but I tried to use the exact words of what I sensed despite their sub-par linguistic affect. In fact the calm I had imagined for trip 1 was fleeting at best. We moved from winery to winery by bike, and after stop 3 (which was actually a brandy distillery) surmounted a gradual, but deadly incline. Around 100 degrees F coupled with the brandy I literally almost passed out at the top. Great that there was water! A very pleasant if not exhausting day. Winery trip 2 was by car and FAR more relaxing. Winery 1 was over the top impressive architecturally and sit into a hill of vines: quite the unusual topographical setting for winegrowing but the aesthetics were stunning! A free tasting to top it off. Number 2 felt like a hole-in-the-wall stop in Provence, sporting the name “Le Pommier” (Appletree) to top it off! Casual. Very different from the other place but also enjoyable. Stop 3 was probably the most “authentic” South African winery, as the architecture fit into the Cape Colonial style and the setting more barebones “we make wines here” as opposed to the “there is wine here, but look at this fabulous façade and setting foremost!” Stop 4 was probably a bit of a mix between all of the above.

HOLD on. I am writing this on the roof of my apartment complex early on a Friday evening, and I just heard jazz music start playing from down the street. So much of the South African lifestyle is chill and enjoyable. I can’t tell where this music is stemming from really, but I can hear it rather clearly. At first I thought it was a protest coming from the Parliament (1.5 blocks away, so we hear them a regular amount) but it doesn’t appear to be so. I actually have to head to the laundrette before it closes for the evening. I think I will try to walk down the street and into there without shoes. Shoes are optional at most in this country, and I’ve been dying to try this myself. I’ve been here over 1.5 months; it’s about time! I will update the rest of this entry “just now” (South African English for sometime in the next few hours……if I ever get to it.)

Survival = Networking

During a turbulent and liminal period of war, French reconnaissance pilot Antoine de St-Exupéry once postulated: <> meaning, “an individual is but the product of his social links.” I am unsure whether or not I agree that this completely defines the self, but this frame of mind has proved absolutely crucial in my work thus far with the South African refugee community. Social networking is thereby crucial on two levels.

Firstly, the refugees themselves must network for survival. They are outsiders in their new communities and often unable to utilize civil society structures in the same manner as permanent residents. Whereas a South African living in Guguletu might pick up a newspaper to search for local job listings, refugees cannot follow this same work pathway. These jobs are listed as part of the formal economy. They require set standards of South African education background, work experience, and social networking. Many residential landlords require proof of a South African bank account in order to take in a new tenant or at least personal references willing to vouch for the potential dweller. Refugees simply do not have access to these professional, personal, and educational backgrounds the way that South Africans might.

To succeed as a refugee, then, one must make use of the social networks already in place. Congolese refugees must make friends with other Congolese refugees. Zimbabweans must talk with other Zimbabweans. Somalis, perhaps more than other refugee communities, remain within the Somali community to sustain their livelihoods. This concept is not much different from that of 19th – early 20th century America: Little Italy, Chinatown, Poletown, and Greektown develop as survival mechanisms. Newcomers must cling to one another in order to acquire the possibility of social networking that most domestic residents take for granted. A setup of three Angolan families sharing a household makes rent much more affordable than that of one struggling alone. The vernacular echoes of Lingala take off the frightening edge of a newly unfamiliar linguistic soundscape. Rumours of work opportunities can filter through the refugee grapevine when a “brother” or a “sister” stumbles across financial prospectives.

Alas the suggestive encouragements I am beginning to send to CTRC patrons. Only as time moves on does the networking system shift. Years of living in South Africa equates to increased familiarity with the socio-scape, a better working understanding of English, necessary experience with the medical facilities, and where children are involved, mass exposure via the public school system. Such gradual life shifts allow refugees to move deeper into mainstream South African society for networking, opportunities, and daily life. The United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deems a refugee/asylum seeker successfully re-integrated into the asylum state once he/she is “making full and complete usage of domestic civil society institutions.” That means schools, hospitals, clinics, churches, mosques, post offices, and banks (to name but a few). Such is the final goal of the Cape Town Refugee Centre, local informal networking the primary means to this end.

On an operational level, networking is also an essential component of the Cape Town Refugee Centre’s daily work. There is an extremely limited amount of assistance that a dedicated staff of 12-15 individuals can provide for a 150,000 + member refugee community. We must resultantly make usage of additional NGOs, government services, and institutions in order to direct refugees in the appropriate direction. This was perhaps one of the most difficult skills I have acquired over the past month. As individuals, refugees require an innumerable array of general human services: medical attention, government statutory concerns, legal aid, homeless shelters, work agencies, orphanages, trauma counseling, children’s court, primary education, tertiary education, skills training, psychiatrics. The trained social worker on staff has been working within the Western Cape community for 17+ years and can refer clients to individual facilities based on personal know-how, but for a foreign student intern this task has been quite daunting. It has required a lot of running to ask for appropriate contact information, questioning references, and re-assuring the client with third-party supervision. Without networking, moreover, the Cape Town Refugee Centre would cease to properly function. If a client were to walk in seeking work help, we’d have no choice but to politely escort them out and wish them good luck.

An important part of said networking is site visits. A representative of the Scalibrini Centre visited the CTRC one day last week to share information about that NGO, the other pre-eminent one in the area working with refugees. As we have been cross-referring clients to one another for some time, the aim of this meeting was to clarify the scope of our programs and ensure that we are not sending people in vain. There is already a substantial amount of bureaucracy that individuals must penetrate in order to receive assistance so minimizing these difficulties is much appreciated. Scalibrini assists refugees with English-language classes and job-seeking. Their employment help desk program was in fact one of my initial internship offers. There, refugees receive help formatting CVs, learn about job avenues and skills training available in the Western Cape, then personally set out to find their own work possibilities. The representative who visited the CTRC stressed these particular programmatic contours and urged us to cease from writing specified referral letters as this causes conflict with those who arrived earlier and have already been waiting for assistance. Although fairly superficial in nature, this meeting made me realize how various non-profit organizations must work together to best serve the community. Each has finite resources, but provided that these organisations communicate with one another what these resources are, as well as the validated avenues of contact between them; then the larger pool can be efficiently allocated to the community in need.

African Gender Regimes

Based on my last few weeks of work, I’ve realized that gender plays a crucial role in the overall South African refugee experience. I previously mentioned that men and women are eligible for different forms of aid, but based on the current rubric they are also eligible for different quantitative amounts of aid. Consider food vouchers, for instance. Men are first and foremost more critically assessed for acquisition of food aid than are women. If accepted, men are then eligible to receive up to 200 Rand. Single women, if qualified for aid, receive 250 Rand and possibly 300 Rand upwards should they also be taking care of children. In this context, men are automatically considered to be less vulnerable than are women. The idea is that men can supposedly fend for themselves out in public better than women. When there are children involved, women are also tied down to take care of them. Child rearing is traditionally a female task in Western society, but in many African societies it is an almost 100% female responsibility.

It has also appeared from my own empirical experience that refugee women hailing from Central African nations are often less educated than their male counterparts. One of the most tangible manifestations of this educational gap is the inability of many female refugees to communicate in English as easily as their husbands, brothers, and male friends. Even those refugees that have been here 3+ years struggle profusely. Often the men go out during the day searching for work opportunities, which naturally puts them into contact with English-speaking South Africans and allows them to develop their new language skills. Wives, sisters, and mothers are frequently left at home to take care of domestic work, all the while conversing with one another in Lingala, Kinyarwanda, or Somali.

A 2003 United Nations publication on Refugees and Forced Displacement claims that almost 80% of refugees are women and children (N.B: I can cite this source retroactively if anyone questions this figure). From a practical standpoint alone, then, refugee reintegration development does need to be enacted via gender sensitive policies. Female refugees do face challenges that males / male refugees do not. I have spoken with several refugee women who have cited the threat of rape as one of the principal reasons for fleeing their former countries. Militant groups invaded their home regions, burnt and pillaged homes, and then strategically raped mass amounts of women. They are at risk sexually in a way that most men simply are not.

The viewpoint that women are more susceptible in the societies of asylum countries also reflects theoretical backing. Critical gender theorist R.W. Connell utilizes the term “hegemonic masculinity” to describe the patriarchal, male-biased nature of the public domain. Most major businesses, government structures, and law enforcement are run by men, thus making society far from a gender-neutral place. One practical application of this is the lack of action among South African law enforcement officials when women come forth complaining of gender-based violence (especially in the township settings). Others might include inaccessibility to serious business ventures and the threat of sexual violence when traveling alone at night.

On one level, it is clear that women warrant special needs attention in refugee development schemes. I couldn’t help but wonder, however, how this particular development formula pairs with contemporary feminist inquiries. If feminism is truly about gender equality (as it so often claims to be) how do we account for single male refugees who feel the same hunger pangs, suffer from the same displacement, and lack the same work as their sisters? Does singling out women as more aid dependant than men work counter to the global strive for increased gender equality? To what extent is it development-based NGOs’ responsibility to implement, educate, and advocate for more equitable gender regimes?

A fellow intern working in the self-reliant small business ventures program reviews business plans from dozens and dozens of refugees, yet she must find a balance between vulnerability and viability as her approval criteria. What kind of gender dynamic would be created if all approved business plans were for women and no men? Following the approval rubric strictly would likely yield this sort of a result. Perhaps the support of female businesses could be considered a type of gender affirmative action programme, but work is scarce in South Africa and men are often just as vulnerable. I’ve frequently heard Annell tell female clients, “In South Africa, women must work, too. You must be a strong, African woman.” There have also been instances of men squandering food vouchers on beers, cigarettes, and personal desires instead of providing for their families. Because of this the CTRC often feels uncomfortable giving food vouchers straight to filial father figures. To generalize a policy based on the presumption that men are biologically more prone to this sort of behavior seems backwards and barbaric, but how do you account for the statistical reality driving such a policy? A gender-sensitive lens is needed to promote effective refugee development programmes, yet what this gender-sensitive lens ought to look like reveals a much greater ongoing struggle.

I’m Sorry; We Don’t Pay Rent: Notes on Development

“Development” can mean any number of things. Recalling back to my “MC 320: Politics, Society, and Economics of the 3rd World” course, the quandary of defining development successfully is in itself a significant obstacle towards meeting its ends. There is strictly economic development, or the idea of capital accumulation that is preferably also self-reinforcing and multiplicative. There is political development, often loosely paired with the idea of democratization and increased power shares for the individual in society. There is cultural development, or the so-called expansion of a multi-level semiotic web in span and influence (borrowing from the Geertzian model of culture). More closely related to the work of the CTRC, yet heavily intertwined with the other modes, is the notion of human development. This means individual empowerment within its social frame, whether that be couched in terms of gender, psychology, language formation, education, skills training, or sustenance. If one further deconstructs the very notion of “development,” he/she might ask something along the lines of: “Development to what? Development from what?” Does the concept of development as it exists today not presuppose an inherently enlightenment, dare-I-say capitalist ideology of increase, expansion, and acquisition? What is the ultimate goal of development, and who gets to decide what the benchmark for this goal ought to look like? Perhaps more bluntly, to what extent is “development” metonymous / synonymous / or even reflective of Westernization?

These very theoretical questions I have struggled with during some of my Madison / Int’l Development courses have taken on an all new light now that I am working out in the field at a grassroots level. Refugees have very diverse needs related to the above-mentioned questions, but Level 1 is always sustenance. As I mentioned in the previous entry, one cannot consider more advanced forms of development needs when there is no food in the stomach. One Congolese woman literally spelled out to me: “Le ventre qui a faim n’a pas d’oreilles” (The hungry stomach has no ears.) In conjunction with this statement might be something like: “Sans abri, accablant de pluie.” (Without shelter, rain is overwhelming).

The Achilles heel of these development priorities is their fleeting usability. Time and time again I have found myself having to tell clients: “I’m sorry, but we can’t help you with your rent payment. We just don’t have resources for that.” That idea, as articulated to me by supervisors, is that rent money disappears. If we pay rent one month, the refugee client will profit from shelter for that month, but what will happen during the next month when they need rent monies yet again? Immediately, there arises a system of both dependence and fund evaporation. Food falls into a similar category, but denying a starving person the very food they need to continue breathing is entirely more problematic. We simply can’t do that either.

Level 1 Development Aid, as I’ve decided to term it, hence seems both the necessary goal and the “anti-focus” of our work. People need this sort of aid to continue their own survival, yet we work at all costs to avoid the recapitulation of said aid dependency. Like the Mama bird that throws her baby off a cliff to teach it to fly only to bandage and nurse it back to health when it fails miserably; we push refugees to utilize the informal networking system surrounding them only to aid them with “Level 1 Development” if they crawl vulnerably back into our office. The looks of desperation, annoyance, or disappointment that I see on a daily basis when I state, “I’m sorry, but we can’t pay rent” can only be coupled with a reassuring smile followed by a, “How do you feel about starting up a small business venture?” or perhaps even more accurately: << Ça vous intéresse, commencer une petite entreprise? >>

Critical Needs Intervention

Cape Town Refugee Centre seeks to aid the most vulnerable refugees before any others. This is determined by a thorough interview for each and every client, both our main administrative task and principal tool for successfully meeting the needs of individual cases. There thus exists a rough frame through which the CTRC conducts assessments and distributes aid: Families are treated as single case units (apparently this is one of the foundational principles found in social work). Single women are viewed as more vulnerable than single men due to men’s de facto capacity to go out into the world by themselves and network with far less risk than their female counterparts. Whenever children are involved in a case, the entire family unit is automatically considered more at risk than they would be otherwise. Physically and psychologically disadvantaged individuals are often more unable to work than others, so they are considered an at-risk group. Finally, new arrivals (those whom have arrived in South Africa within the past 6 months) are considered to be more vulnerable than those refugees who have already spent a minimum of 6 months in the country and theoretically had enough time to re-establish themselves.

Given this rubric, certain cases raise immediate red flags for needed social assistance. One of these such cases involved a single woman with two children needing immediate assistance with housing. To make matters worse, the woman spoke virtually no English [and broken French!]. Her son had an acute knee problem that recently required an operation, rendering him unable to walk and placing him out of school for the time being. Although CTRC does not normally aid clients in finding living arrangements, this particular case warranted immediate efforts. As senior social worker Annel explained to me: “How can a person think about work when he/she does not even have a roof over his/her head?” Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs must come into play for this type of grassroots human development work. Food and water form the primary building block for human survival. Shelter from the elements and personal security follow closely behind. Only once these needs are met can an individual begin to worry about additional ventures: education and work, emotional contentedness, and ultimately self-fulfillment / helping others. Encouraging this family to put their son back into school would not mean much at the time if they were still unable to place a roof over their heads.

From this critical incident arose the essential inevitability of NGO networking. The CTRC does not have sufficient resources to provide for all the diverse needs faced by the South African refugee community. When we encounter a case such as the above-mentioned one, then, we need to call upon the resources available via surrounding civil society organizations, government structures, and other institutions in order to help meet our clients’ urgent needs. For the case at hand, we telephoned a nearby shelter called Bonne Espérance to see if they had sufficient room to house this woman and her two children. Bonne Espérance only houses vulnerable women and their small children, but it offers them education during their up-to-6-month stay, crèche (daycare) for the little children, and support for post-residency societal reintegration.

Luckily, Bonne Espérance responded in the affirmative. Since I played a significant role in this family’s case, Annel let me accompany her when she drove the family in her personal vehicle to their new temporary home. Bonne Espérance is located in Philippi, one of the South African townships. It blew my mind to see how different this community looked from its nearby neighbors: colourful shacks piled one atop another; roosters, cows, and goats ambling freely across the busy intersections; pervasive dirt; giddy school children in their uniform-best next to disheveled one-toothed vendors; piles of fresh fruit falling victim to mass swarms of flies and insects; chickens waiting on death-row to be consumed at a township braai; and oddly enough the cheerful façade of Bonne Espérance cloaked in protective barbed wire. The organisation’s courtyard and facilities evoked similarly unanticipated reactions of pleasant surprise. I watched “half-spectator / half-participant” as the family exited the vehicle into their new surroundings and wished “good hope” to my first case of critical life intervention development.

"Over the Mountain, Down in the Valley..." Cont'd

Picture taken from Clifton Beach (read below). This is currently the background on my laptop. The following are a few more shots of that beach area just across the mountain.