“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains,
Nelson Mandela
A white South African lady greeted me in the streets of Muizemberg. She asked me what was I doing in Cape Town. I told her I worked in a Township teaching photography to kids and with an amazed look she said to me: “you are brave, I have never been in a Township all my life, and I am born and raised here. You be careful, they are not good people, I am scared of them (referring to the color and black), they can rob me and even kill me if I am in their neighborhood because I am white.
A refugee lady from the Congo invited me to her home. The hospitality was amazing and her family was incredibly kind to me. I was treated like a celebrity; there was food and drinks prepared just for the visitors and they even gave me souvenirs. The whole time I wondered why people are afraid of them; is it their dark colored skin? Is it their old homes, cars or clothing? As I am getting ready to go back home after a nice day one of the lady’s brother offered to give me a ride to the train station advising me not to walk for my own safety. He said to me: you have got to be careful with the color people, they are dangerous and they will steal from you.
A friend of mine resident of a Township told me: I know that when I walk on the streets white people look at me and cross to the other side of the streets. They think I will steal from them, they are afraid of me and they judge me just for being a color person.
This is the rainbow nation of South Africa. A melting pot of white, black and color people all united under one flag that has struggled to exist and continues to suffer for its unjustifiable sins of the past. The sequels of Apartheid and a history of injustices are shown in the reality that what melt on the streets of South Africa is fear rather than forgiveness and unity of a so called “rainbow nation”.
South Afr
ica has been set free from British colonization as well as oppressive governmental systems of segregation for quite a while and it proudly waves a freedom flag, but is it unbound from its own slavery that is rooted in judgments and resentments?
ica has been set free from British colonization as well as oppressive governmental systems of segregation for quite a while and it proudly waves a freedom flag, but is it unbound from its own slavery that is rooted in judgments and resentments?Certainly not a law, a president, a flag or a rugby game can be the solution to the issues of the heart. The judgments are still in the heart of those who have not yet willing to let go the past; those who have not yet seen the beauty in diversity which is the very essence of the universe; those who have not understood the power of forgiveness as the foundation of freedom. But which are the roads we must take towards that freedom?
Great servants, such as Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, spent most of their life in the great effort to achieve freedom and unity in South Africa. It was in a tiny cell where Mandela understood the true essence o freedom and the real roads to achieve it: “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness”. Marthin Luther King Jr. in his own struggle for freedom understood that “forgiveness is not as an occasional act, but a permanent attitude”. The power does not relies in the ability to control people, but in the ability to do the unexpected, returning good for evil, forgiving 70x7 and not doing to others what we do want to be done to us. It is not a one-time event but a life style that begins redefining values.
I speak as an outsider. I haven’t live through the hardships of apartheid. I am not suffering
from Xenophobia, nor I not a refugee from Congo who suffers discrimination from his own fellow Africans, or a color South African who lives in a Township after being evicted to a “color designated area”. I don’t think I could ever be in the shoes of those who suffered during and after apartheid. However I do know that the issues of judgments and the struggles for freedom are the same everywhere because the root continues to be the same and as long as they are not confronted for a change events such as Apartheid will continually exist and lead to unjust wars.
from Xenophobia, nor I not a refugee from Congo who suffers discrimination from his own fellow Africans, or a color South African who lives in a Township after being evicted to a “color designated area”. I don’t think I could ever be in the shoes of those who suffered during and after apartheid. However I do know that the issues of judgments and the struggles for freedom are the same everywhere because the root continues to be the same and as long as they are not confronted for a change events such as Apartheid will continually exist and lead to unjust wars. I am concern about the epidemic of poverty that is spreading all over the world. It’s not emotional nor material, it is the poverty of the heart, the lack of humanity in the world. What or who can change a heart of stone filled with bitterness and judgments into a heart of flesh ready to forgive, to start to live and let others live in freedom? Like Madiba said, “It always seems impossible until its done”. I believe that the world’s walk to freedom we must start by taking the real roads, changing directions and changing hearts. South Africa has walked a long way till this day in the struggle for freedom and we must remember that it took common people with great convictions to start.