Berkley Center

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.

My introduction to the rampant poverty in South Africa was during my initial car ride from the airport. After more than thirty hours of straight travel, including an unexpected airline strike and misplaced baggage, I arrived in Cape Town disoriented and exhausted. With the late January sun blazing, I shoved my bags into the back of a tiny car and piled in eager for my first sights of Africa. As the car hummed down the highway, I caught my first glimpses of the Cape Flats, an area of largely black townships just outside of Cape Town. A maze of corrugated tin shacks and clothes lines stretched far into the horizon. Kids played soccer on the small swatches of grass by the side of the freeway. As I stared out my window, the white volunteer who was driving turned, and said in a half-apologetic tone: “Poverty is a big problem here in South Africa. But we are hosting the World Cup in 2010, so they are really trying to do something about all of these shacks.” Then he told me to lock the door of the car. You can never be too careful, he said. It is impossible to talk about issues of religion in conjunction with society and politics, without referring to South Africa’s history of colonization and apartheid. South Africa has a rich tradition of regional religions, which in the modern era have largely been marginalized or in some way incorporated into more mainstream monotheistic faiths.

Christianity, the most widespread organized religion in South Africa, arrived in the late fifteenth century with the European explorers and the subsequent settlers in the Western Cape. European Christian missionaries embarked on widespread conversions during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, preaching a message of evangelical healing and redemption. While the missions were initially met with a great deal of resistance, over the subsequent two hundred years Christianity became more widely accepted and practiced throughout South Africa. By the beginning of the twentieth century fully 50 percent of the black population described themselves as Christian. The nature and performance of Christianity took a marked turn with the introduction of apartheid policies in the mid twentieth century. The very racial discrimination which marked the era was directly justified by the Dutch Reformed Church, which declared that the white Afrikaner minority constituted “God’s chosen people.” Such rhetoric laid the foundation for the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and subsequently apartheid racial segregation policies. Paradoxically, Christianity was used just as readily by the forces which fought against apartheid. The African National Congress, the party which assumed power in the first democratic election in 1994, drew on a form of Christian liberation theology and rhetoric to define their struggle against racial segregation.

The year 2007 marked the beginning of South Africa’s thirteenth year of democracy. The government has dubbed the new South Africa to be the “rainbow nation” and is quick to celebrate the country’s inherent pluralism. Cape Town, as one of the largest and arguably most cosmopolitan of South African cities, has a great deal of religious and cultural diversity. Beyond Christianity, many other faiths have large followings, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well as some smaller religions. I even stumbled across a Dianetics clinic among a popular tourist shopping market, peddling worn copies of L. Ron Hubbard’s foundational Scientology text. Yet, despite the rich diversity of ethnic groups and religious practices, the segregation which defined the country for the past 50 years has left society in Cape Town incredibly divided.

I spent a weekend with a host family in a colored township (a term used to describe people of mixed descent) outside of Cape Town. The people of Ocean View were former residents of Simon’s Town, a former colored enclave which was situated on some of the most prime real estate in the city. In the mid 1960s the entire population of Simon’s Town was forcibly relocated to the cruelly named Ocean View, a “town” which then consisted of government built apartment projects and dirt roads. Thirty years later Ocean View has grown, but the community remains largely homogeneous, and alcoholism and high unemployment are prevalent. On my first night in Ocean View one resident told me, “When they relocated us here, the first thing that went up was a bottle shop. The second was a church.”

The Muslim community in Ocean View is large and incredibly vibrant. My host mother, a devout Muslim, extended more generosity and kindness to me over the course of three days than I have ever received as a guest in the United States. I awoke on the first morning to the sound of her early morning prayers, and awoke again to the exotic smells of her cooking. I inquired about her life in Ocean View, and she confided in me the difficulties of leaving Simon’s Town and the tragedy of her first husband’s death. I asked her how she managed to deal with all of the hardships in her life, and she replied sincerely, “What has happened in the past is in the past. Allah has blessed me with beautiful children and grandchildren. I have been to Mecca, and every day of my life is a blessing.”

I have been in Cape Town for two months, and every day I am amazed with the beauty of the country and the sheer resilience of its people. Fifteen years ago the University of Cape Town would have been comprised almost wholly of white students, today it (better) reflects the diversity of the nation. South Africans from all backgrounds speak with great hope for the future of the county, and ethnic diversity and religious pluralism are celebrated actively by the government as hallmarks of the “rainbow nation.” However, the reality of life in Cape Town is that communities are still starkly divided down racial and cultural lines, and the historically disadvantaged have inherited a level of poverty which seems insurmountable. Now that democracy has been achieved and racist apartheid legislation has been cast aside, the real challenge seems to be healing the fractured identity of South Africa and to create a level of economic equality for all.