Study Abroad in South Africa

The Hector Pieterson Museum is a place of solemn memories and rays of hope. June 16, 1976 marked the Soweto Uprising where thousands of school aged children organized a peaceful demonstration to protest the governments deliberate attack upon the education of Black children. The distribution of government funds during the rule of the Apartheid regime amongst racial groups was 10, 5, 2. Whites would receive 10 the coloured population 5, and the black population 2. This created an obvious lack of resources particularly in black schools. In addition to a segregated school system which was only focused on educating black students on how to become labourers, the Apartheid regime began to force schools to educate black students in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is a mixture of the Dutch, German, and British languages that was foreign to the black students. The issue of language is significant because language ties students to their culturally heritage. Blacks referred to this push to learn Afrikaans as an act to learn the language of their oppressor. The Afrikaans population in South Africa is a mix of the European settlers who forcible took the land from South Africans by murdering the original inhabitants and destroying their property. The students in Soweto were fighting against their oppressor by rejecting the Afrikaans language and the many deficiencies that were evident in black schools.

Hector Pieterson was one of the many one young children shot and killed during the Soweto uprising. He become an iconic figure from the famous photograph that was published around the world with Hector being carried by another young boy, Mbusyia Makubo, and his sister Antoinette Sithole running behind them. The emotion felt in that picture is a mere glimpse of the tragedy that occurred that day. The Hector Pieterson Museum is a self guided tour that doesn’t just offer a generic narration of what happened, but allows you to read personal accounts and view real images and footage of the Soweto Uprising. The museum takes you on an emotional journey of the students and their battle for fair education. It gives accounts of what individual students were doing the morning of June 16 and how they made the decision to organize.

One of the quotes I read reflected on how the students wore their best school clothes to present themselves in a serious yet organized manner. Another touching quote reflected on their sense of community amongst each other. Students organized by lining up in rows of five holding hands, and each hand they held they were responsible for that person during the march. This portion of the museum was truly inspiring, yet I knew that this only the beginning of my journey. Walking further through the museum I read accounts of students who saw police using students and even young children for target practice as they shot at children from behind who posed no threat. One participant in the march remembered seeing police shot an eight year old girl in the back of the head as she was crawling toward her injured mother. Both the mother and the child died bleeding in the street. Seeing the black and white photographs of bloody students, and lifeless bodies lying in the street truly took an emotional toll on me. As I neared the end of the museum, I saw the mass funeral that took place and the hundreds of mothers lined up to saw good bye to their children. The last part of the museum was not only a dedication to those who lost their lives but an eerie reminder of the tragedy of the Soweto Uprising. On the left hand side of the last set of stairs in the museum  were two large windows looking out into an open air courtyard scattered with hundreds of bricks. Each brick represented someone who had died in the struggle. Some bricks had names and some were unknown, yet and still each brick represented the life of a person in the pursuit of freedom and equality.

Being here in South Africa free of the distractions of cellphones, email, and social networking no longer allows me to emotionally detach myself from what I am viewing. I am forced to silently process my thoughts and deal with the real emotions evoked through every experience. I think technology has allowed humans to disconnect ourselves from other humans and become somewhat numb to the ability to feel an emotional connection to each other. It is important that we take time to reconnect with who we are individually and collectively as humans to ensure that our desensitization does not allow such tragedies as the Soweto Uprising, and the Aparthied to occur again.

*Thursday 14 July*

WOW….

Today was by far the most amazing day of my trip abroad. I had a great time touring the gold mines and visiting the apartheid museum BUT my night proved to be the pinnacle of my time here in South Africa!

We were hosted by the First Lady of South Africa,  Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma at her house (South African “White House”) for a formal dinner! It is difficult to sum up the feelings of gratitude and honor I felt as she welcomed us into her home, as well as her dining room! Over dinner, we were presented a future opportunity to assist the First Lady with a program concerning the outbreak of human trafficking in South Africa! I was surprisingly pleased to witness how personable and congenial Mrs Zuma was! To our surprise, as we finished dinner, PRESIDENT ZUMA paid us a visit! President Zuma sat down and over a cup of coffee described his day conducting the Executive Committee meeting. He proved both humorous and earnest during his time with us. He also shared his platform for a upcoming ANC event. (the PRESS isn’t even aware of the information he shared with us!) It was great to see my fellow comrades, all from different disciplines and backgrounds, come together for an experience that is SURE to impact the rest of our life!

I was throughly pleased with my visit to the South African “white house” and very thankful for our very own, Ionnie McNeill for her persistence!

Later, one of my classmates brought up the fact that we have studied & toured South Africa for almost three weeks now. We stared with the foundation and creation of culture, the periods of oppression and the struggle toward freedom, & subsequently ending with the freedom and democracy of citizens. Drawing near the end of our studies, we [BLACK STUDENTS] ended up having dinner at the PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE of a BLACK president [who was once a political prisoner for his involvement in the struggle AGAINST oppression and inequality! Oh how the times have changed!  

 2 more days…..
xoxo
-Macy

The events of the past few days have been immensely rewarding and insightful. We’ve seen several historic and memorable sights that few students of our time can attest to. Two days ago we visited Constitution Hill and were able to see the remnants of the old prison where historic leader such as Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Robert Sobukwe , and Mahatma Gandhi were imprisoned. Even in its depleted state it was obvious that this institutions primary goal was to humiliate, degrade, and dehumanize those imprisoned. The plates the prisoners eat off of were washed once a month. Coinciding with the racism of Apartheid, a racial hierarchy was established in the prison. This hierarchy, with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom, ordered every aspect of prison life including clothing distribution, food rations and quality, and bathing privileges. The prisoners would use their blankets to create artistic objects such as a couch or an artillery tank to entertain the guards. The prisoner who created the best blanket sculpture would earn special gifts or privileges from the pleased guards. On Christmas, the white prisoners were given cake or pudding and the colored prisoners were given sugar and milk with their coffee or tea. The black prisoners received nothing.
The imprisoned men and women were separated of course. Visiting the women’s prison illuminated various horrors of prison life that I had never imaged before. Upon entering the prison, the black women were forced to remove their shoes and underwear. If a prisoner misbehaved she was forced to watch the other prisoners eat their meals and divide the meal intended for her among them. To receive sanitary napkins during menstruation, the woman had to prove to a guard that she was in fact bleeding. Even then the prisoner was only given 3 pads and she was still left without panties. The guards would stand by and watch as the prisoners used the bathroom, which was a shallow ditch. This went for both the men and the women. Deliberate eradication of privacy was used as a means of humiliation among the guards. The prisoners were shoved under a rotating faucet that dispensed icy cold water once a week. They were allowed to wash their blankets once a year. One woman vividly recalls a guard that “liked young girls” who would be present during their weekly showers. The guard would force the naked woman to lay flat on her back. The guard would then push down on the prisoner’s stomach and use a key to search inside her for any prohibited items such as cigarettes. The women prisoners did all the laundry, including the clothes of those in the men’s prison. One recollection of a prisoner stated that she often found herself washing blood and puss out of the pants from the men’s prison. She was told the residue was from a public lashing. In the courtyard of the women’s prison there were two large tubs filled with cold water. These tubs were to be used for washing clothes and the water was never changed. One woman remarked that she would try to be the first person at one of the tubs because the water would at least be cleaner. She also recalls breaking the ice that would form on the surface of the water.
The doctors in the prison subjected the black prisoners to well documented abuse. A doctor refused to see a patient in the middle of the night that slipped and broke her hip in the shower. The prisoner was forced to walk over to the infirmary the next morning. The doctor yelled at her as she waited outside the door. Another doctor screamed at a pregnant black prisoner, “If you cared about you baby then you would have carried your pass.” These women were imprisoned for their participation in the struggle against Apartheid and its oppressive policies. The injustices they experienced in the name of justice were daily reminders of the atrocities they desired to eliminate in South Africa.
Later that day we also visited the Mandela House and the Hector Pieterson Museum. It was interesting to see the humble beginnings of such a dynamic family. The Hector Pieterson Museum was by far one of the most emotionally pulling and informative museums I’ve attended. The photographs in the museum that documented the death of Hector Pieterson and the struggle from the perspective of the youth at the time were particularly engaging and memorable. The students from various schools that participated in the protest near Sharpville were fighting against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in their schools. I was amazed by how invested they were in the direction/future of their education at such a young age. In the past, students at Howard have taken over the Administration Building in protest of a curriculum they perceived to be irrespective of the contribution of African Americans. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee played a monumental role on college campuses during the Civil Rights Movement as well. It was just interesting to see this very same dynamic at play here in South Africa during the struggle against Apartheid. Hector Pieterson may have been the first child killed by the violence ignited by injustice of Apartheid but he certainly wasn’t the last.
Yesterday we went to the Apartheid Museum and the Gold Mine nearby. The Apartheid Museum presented an overwhelming amount of information and documentation. I found the words of Hendrik Verwoerd to be of particular interest. He was the Minister of Native Affairs and would later become Prime Minister in 1957. As Minister of Native Affairs he was in charge of the education received by the black children. He stated that there was no place for the Bantu children in a white society above certain levels of labor. He went on to say that he desired to reform the Bantu education system so that black children would be taught from a very early age that equality with white men was not for the Bantu child. In 1966 Verwoerd was assassinated in parliament by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger.
That evening we had the opportunity to have dinner with the First Lady of South Africa, Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma. Over dinner we discussed her national initiative against human trafficking here in South Africa and its ramifications. I felt honored to be a part of this unofficial delegation from Howard University. We were surprised with a visit from the President himself, Jacob Zuma. Overall, it was a once in a lifetime experience that has further illuminated how this particular group of cohorts from Howard is contributing not only to our own individual learning/growing process but that of Howard University as well.
Tomorrow we are going to the Cradle of Humankind. Class today mainly consisted of preparation for that experience and tying in everything we’ve observed thus far to the events that occurred over the past two days.