Mela Louise Norman

"The beautiful landscapes are devoid of people. Except for the little people of the Kalahari - pretty, dainty, small and graceful - the Bushmen. Where any other person would die of thirst in a few days… they live quite contentedly in this desert."
-Film, The Gods Must be Crazy

Jamie Uys' 1981 film The Gods Must be Crazy introduced the world to the San, a small group of people indigenous to Southern Africa. The film depicts the naiveté of the 'pre-historic' community, as their social order descends into chaos when a coke can ominously falls from the sky. The film was a huge Hollywood success, banking millions both domestically and internationally, and spawned several sequels. For the San community, however, the film was simply another example of western exploitation and misrepresentation of their cultural and religious beliefs.

To imagine South African society is an exercise in thinking in parallels, recognizing the inherent duality which results from centuries of rule under a regime which privileged a minority at the expense of the vast majority. After hundreds of years of colonization and the end of nearly a half a century of apartheid policies the “new” South Africa has emerged, an unbelievably rich and diverse country with vast economic inequality. Before traveling to South Africa, I had often heard the country described as both thoroughly “first world” and “third world”. I have found this description, while reductionist, acutely accurate in describing the communities within Cape Town.