Reflections on Freedom

Freedom Reflections on

WINTER 2013

Exploring the wonderful, challenging worlds of Mississippi and South Africa

ZIMBABWE M O Z AM B I Q U E

Limpopo

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Ikwezi Nieu-Bethesda

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orientation of place during the course.

KAROO The stories they East London produced were a result of their experiences during the Port Elizabeth two weeks, which prompted them Cape Town Western Cape to think back and venture into the future to create. Will and his team then edited the words and selected photos that gave the stories life, and the design and layout of the magazine clearly illustrates Norton is the dean of the Meek School of the place for this type of journalism in Journalism and New Media. During our today’s ever-changing media world. meeting at the Meek School, the idea for This publication is thus a tribute to this publication was conceptualized.

International collaboration in which University Internationalization has We were all in agreement that students students are allowed to explore and create. as its foundation academic work that is of both universities live in a complex and This end result was not envisaged when creative and that shares. If this happens changing world and that we should create created more than two years ago. I hope where cultures meet, the creativity is not an opportunity for them to tell their those who read this mosaic of stories merely informative but transformative, stories, especially about their personal will not only see through the eyes of to the individual that participates as experiences of freedom in the place where the students but also be encouraged to well as to the communities it serves. they live. Will agreed to teach a writing experience some of the places depicted This project was, like most innovative class that would produce a publication. in these transformative stories in a activities, developed in a brainstorming He brought three Ole Miss students to world that needs social innovation. session. Dr. Tim Angle, former associate Port Elizabeth to meet with a number of provost responsible for the partnership Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Dr. Nico Jooste, Senior Director between the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan students for a two-week writing course, Office for International Education University and the University of and they experienced Port Elizabeth and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Mississippi, introduced Will Norton to me.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa surroundings as well as Cape Town as an

Prologue

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

Freedom Reflections on

WINTER 2013

Exploring the wonderful, challenging worlds of Mississippi and South Africa

Content Page 2 Our Sense Of Commonality Focuses On Freedom Page 4 A Humble Piece Of Earth Page 6 We Celebrate The Heroes Of The Eastern Cape

Photo by Chris Allen

The representation of Nelson Mandela on Route 67 is a symbol of true leadership.

EDITORIAL STAFF Kate du Toit Bracey Harris Jontarius Haywood Ziphozakhe Hlobo Andrew Howarth Rahmat Luvuyo Nomvete Okhule Dotwana Lisa Weideman •

DESIGN EDITOR Darren Sanefski

Page 10 Page 12 Page 15 Page 16 Page 18

That They Know Who They Are Makes Them Special This Land Is In My Blood Who Is This Woman Of Steel?

Let Us Have Faith In Ourselves As Africans The Path To Greatness Lies In Daily Commitment To Selflessness

Page 20 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28

I Moved To A Place Called Central Freedom Is The Most Cherished Possession Of A South African We Have The Same Struggles Freedom Is Living Unconventionally We No Longer Live Under Overt Oppression To Be Free Is To Experience Dangers

Page 30 Page 34 Page 36 Page 38

The Corners Of A City Infinity Dwells In The Karoo Freedom Is Using Media To Describe South Africa Accurately A Universal Theme Binds Us

Page 40 Page 42 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 48

I Like What Africa Has To Say Here On The Eastern Cape Ikwezi: A Town Lacking In Dreams My Dad Was Arrested And Tortured Fighting Apartheid Quality Education Must Be Accessible To Everyone I Crave Freedom From The Confines Of Our Family’s Male Tradition Port Elizabeth Has Its Share Of Real Africa

Page 52 Page 54 Page 58 Page 60

This City Offers People Freedom To Unite The Thought Of Living In Port Elizabeth Filled Me With Foreboding Mbali’s Story Is My Story We Are Somewhat Homeless

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Our Sense of Commonality Focuses on Freedom We are constantly learning how to move from our complicated past to create a future dynamic we all will love

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By Kate du Toit

The Lyceum on the University of Mississippi campus in many ways is a symbol that communicates the values of Mississippi, the challenges it faces and the triumphs it has celebrated.

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

he city of Port Elizabeth isn’t the most “hip� or modern city in South Africa, but it definitely has something which the other South African cities do not.

The wind, absolutely, but far more importantly, our genuine interest in those around us. We are warm and inviting. Meet us for the first time, give us half a chance, and we will invite you to a family braai (barbecue) or out for drinks with friends, simply so that you feel welcome in your new city.

It is difficult to know what the students from the University of Mississippi felt as they flew across the Atlantic on their first venture into Africa.

However, when they arrived, they most certainly must have been surprised.

As educated individuals, we know they were not expecting to see elephants walking in the streets (although we do have our fair share of donkeys and cows) or for everyone in the class to be wearing grass skirts (or less). They would definitely, however, have had anxieties about some subtler issues: Will I be safe? How will I be treated as a person of color? Will I clearly see the effects apartheid has had on the nation?

These questions are undeniably relevant in a nation known internationally for its crime rate and for having only had its first democratic elections 18 years ago. What they most likely did not expect, but came to realise, is the number of similarities our nations have. Yes, we are 14,135 km (8,779 miles) apart, and yet we are dealing with many comparable political and cultural issues.

It was on this premise that a small group of students from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and our Ole Miss guests spent a week in evening lectures by Professor Will Norton, dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at The University of Mississippi. This exchange provided not only the opportunity to fine tune our writing skills, but also

to reflect, contemplate and discuss what makes us different yet the same.

The final result – this publication, filled with our personal stories and reflections on South Africa and Mississippi today.

A definite trend that has emerged amongst South Africans, in particular the younger generation, is the ability to combine humour — a kind of “laughing at ourselves,” with the acknowledgment of the serious issues we face daily. It is a core part of who we are as South Africans and of what makes South Africa what it is. This trend also has emerged, without any previous discussion within the group, in many of the essays in this publication.

Sit in a local coffee shop next to a table of the new young South African working class, and you will notice that they are of every race and have great fun joking with each other about their different cultural norms. Ask almost anyone, regardless of race or wealth, urban or rural, who one of their favourite South African comedians is and they will say Trevor Noah.

Why? Because he stands in the centre. He is not of one particular ‘race’ but is of Swedish and Xhosa descent and therefore manages, with great skill, to help us all to laugh at ourselves whilst acknowledging what still needs to be done and who we would still like to become as a nation.

Foreigners often struggle with this particular way of being. Some become offended rather than taking the time to listen and understand that this is a core part of who we now are and the reason why it is so. After all, we are dealing with a rather unique situation. Not only do we have many more than the 14 designated official languages, but each of our languages comes with a cultural background.

Clearly, we are constantly learning how to move from our complicated past to create a future dynamic that we all will love.

Mississippi also has a complicated racial past. A past they also are still constantly working through.

The history of both these areas has resulted in serious issues being addressed in this publication. Sometimes they are sad, sometimes shocking and sometimes spoken of with a chuckle or a laugh. Each essay, does, however, give a truthful glimpse into the South Africa and Mississippi we all live in today.

These essays portray our constant grappling with racial and cultural differences, the search of some to find a space in which we all can operate and the frustration with those who do not have this common good in mind. The question of what freedom means to each of us individually invoked deep longings and convictions.

A picture of hope sitting alongside desperation and sadness has emerged.

Daily we see some of the worst situations one could imagine — poverty, crime, road rage, sickness, the abuse of women, the struggles over the role of men and woman in our society … seemingly endless and overwhelming.

And then — a hand of kindness, an act of selflessness, that person who has given up everything to help, the politician who goes against the norm, a beautiful big luscious laugh — it is the inspirational stories of individuals that continually motivate and drive us to see the future of freedom in our nations. It is the lesson Nelson Mandela, our greatest freedom fighter, the father of our nation, stated so eloquently when he said, “I am fundamentally an optimist. … Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”

And so it was with this sense of commonality and desire for freedom of a different kind that our new Mississippi friends boarded their plane to head back home. Their great African adventure resulted in not only a great welcome to warm and friendly Port Elizabeth, but also a sense of self-awareness and a vast amount to think about.

Now, as you pick up your cup of tea or glass of wine and take some time out to enjoy the essays that follow, we hope you also will feel inspired and can say along with us, THIS is what makes me proudly a citizen of change.

The beautiful old Port Elizabeth City Hall.

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A Humble Piece of Earth

Route 67 is a source of pride in South African history

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

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By Andrew Howarth n a grey afternoon not uncommon for a winter morning in coastal South Africa, a group of 11 gathers under the King Edward Hotel portico in Port Elizabeth. All but one are unfamiliar with Route 67, the colourful set up that commemorates Nelson Mandela’s 67 years of public work.

Each of us came with an expectation, and each would leave with our own perspective.

There was a lot to take in on this journey down the Donkin Reserve hill.

What I learnt was more philosophical in spite of the enriching bouquet of facts, figures and questions posed by our enthusiastic tour guide.

Entering Route 67, we are welcomed by a coral tree, ancient and iridescent against the opaque sky. The coral trees are a testament to indigenous resilience. They dot the roads, parks and schools with their signature flare of burning orange petals and bright red beans. The tree provides a natural disinfectant, and pre-colonial people used its leaves for teeth cleaning. The beans are collected by children as keepsakes and said to bring good luck. They embody

the childhood joy and memories of many adults who grew up on the Eastern Cape.

Beaded mosaics mark the floor in various patterns, symbolically ambiguous. The beads flow from styles prominent in different cultures, often fairly removed from one another. However, they all seem to meet in intimate lines, making it difficult to distinguish one’s culture from another’s.

Around the Donkin Reserve, the refurbished Victorian district looks new with fresh paint, clean streets, artwork and restored wooden and brick structures.

An island of reinvention amidst the grimy workings of Central — a blossom amongst decay. The hotel where we started has been preened and polished in an ambitious move to reform the decrepit waste to which this historic suburb has been subjected.

Port Elizabeth is a city of understated romance. Born in an era of colonial stratagem, it has been inhabited by many cultures, all leaving their distinctive histories. The Donkin monument shoulders its lighthouse. It was built during the 1820s

by Sir Rufane Donkin, governor of Cape Colony, as an expression of his devotion to his wife who died of scarlet fever in India and did not have a proper burial. The monument is inscribed, “To the memory of

Photo by Chris Allen

This statue depicts a man called Prester John, said to be a descendant of the Three Magi, in conversation with a Portuguese explorer. Prester John also was alleged to have been a crusader-era Christian king in Ethiopia — or a Mongol from the time of Genghis Khan.

one of the most perfect human beings who has given her name to the town below.”

As I walk along the tiles depicting traits Africa has assumed, I reflect on how a man who thinks someone is so perfect could not be far off himself if he goes to this length for another, and then I look right and see the metal effigy of Nelson Mandela — a man with one hand raised and the other at the height a child could grasp, a man who devoted himself to a nation. South Africa has been his Donkin.

Mandela spent 67 years in political service to a nation that did not always regard him. He spent nearly three decades imprisoned for his anti-apartheid stance.

Mbeki, Sisulu, Tambo, Biko — Luthuli men of character were vital in the liberation — are not held in as great esteem as Mandela who became South Africa’s first president elected in a fair election.

History cannot be measured, calculated or explained. It is intrinsically gathered from experience and stored to memory. Thus, to broach sensitive topics in our nation’s history is difficult, and I wonder whether my friends from Mississippi comprehend the heaviness of some of the topics, the sombre notes in comments, the political defences or the tactful remarks. In their experience with us, I wonder what their understanding is of our shared memories. I wonder if all contexts are understood because of the sheer mass of content encumbered in those brief but elaborate conversations, debates and sometimes arguments.

If my non-African friends are to take one thing from Africa, let it be that South Africa is not done with its turbulent transition.

We speak at length about the means of expressing what is and what has been. “Where is our space? What defines where we belong?” We address the issue of a stolen history, one that our elders are too frightened or ashamed to talk about and our governments too reluctant to put in curriculum.

Route 67 is a bold step toward a history for South Africa, one that combines a nation’s heritage — diverse and disputed as it evolves into a shared knowledge.

Route 67 is by no means a grand tourist attraction. There are no ornate decorations or intricate scaffolding, no stained glass or architectural breakthroughs. It is simple — a humble piece of earth set aside for the creativity of South Africans.

Indeed, it is a source of pride in the creation of a South African history.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

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WE CELEBRATE THE

HEROES EASTERN CAPE

OF THE

Port Elizabeth showcases those who fought for our equality

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

By Divinia Pillay

I feel the projected pride and the hope of those who brought democracy to South Africa when I walk along Route 67 in the historic queue comprising the shadows of those waiting to cast their votes.

I move around the cylindrical structure on which symbolic figures are displayed and reach the end where I see a representation of Nelson Mandela, a symbol of true leadership and a light for hope, his freedom fist in the air. I transport myself back to that day. Eleven years old, I was too young to participate in the first democratic election, but old enough to understand that something big was happening. The concept of the South African rainbow nation was still quite foreign to South African people suffering from a divided past. One of my grade five classmates constantly fought with me in the weeks leading up to the election. Her father, an employee of the South African Police Service, was clearly under the impression that the election would result in a barbaric bloodbath.

In our home, there was no such talk. My parents seemed to know that the events would be orderly. It was as if they knew the time for change had definitely arrived and South Africa was going to become what it should be. The day arrived and the TV was on, set on one channel for the entire day. I don’t remember our home being tense that day. It was quite calm. The images of the thousands of people standing in line to cast their votes on that day brought a sense of excitement, but calm at the same time.

Now as I walk alongside the shadows of those who physically took a long road to freedom, the artistic structure, a part of Route 67, I cannot help wanting to be a part of that legendary day, April 27,

Photo by Chris Allen

The representation of Nelson Mandela on Route 67 is a symbol of true leadership.

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1994, the day democracy came to South Africa. My only contribution was that I was a child who would benefit from the outcome of that first democratic election.

A kaleidoscope of colours surrounds this structure, symbolising freedom achieved after so many years and depicted as the long walk to freedom. The artwork of Route 67 depicts a way of life in South Africa dating back before the colonial takeover.

The route is not a conventional pathway that is easily followed and understood.

The brainchild of the Mandela Bay Development Agency in partnership with the National Lottery distribution fund, Route 67, features 67 pieces of contemporary art in honour of the 67 years of Nelson Mandela’s public life. The route spirals through the nooks, racks and streets of the Port Elizabeth Central

Photo by Chris Allen

Port Elizabeth was the home for many of the struggle heroes whose leadership brought freedom for all South Africans.

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Business District somewhat in contrast to the Campanile and the Donkin Reseerve, colonial architecture in the area.

Built during the 1820s, the Donkin Memorial was named in honour of Elizabeth Donkin, Sir Rufane Donkin’s late wife. Beside the Donkin Memorial is the Lighthouse that was established in 1861.

Today it serves as the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Tourism Office. These two structures form part of the route incorporating the history of the city.

It took years to complete Route 67. In fact, the length of construction symbolizes South Africa’s Long Walk to Freedom. The route was opened in 2009, but the characters were not filled in until 2011.

Artists Bretten Ane Moolman and Lourens Westraadt started their ArtComix Project to “flesh out” two characters who would star in a publication chronicling their journeys along Route 67. They called on top public artists such as Alexandra Noble, Stephanie van Vuuren and Jacques Nel, to offer workshops for young local artists. After the structured workshops, a team of primary illustrators was identified to complete the project. Andile Poswa, Bamanye Ngxale, Christo Booth and Monde Goniwe and a backup team, Banele Njadayi, Christopher Musvaruki Mkhonto Gwazela and Siyabonga Ngaki contributed to the success of the project.

Khaya and Themba are the two young illustrated characters in the display that documents their journey.

The Mandela Bay Development Agency issued a statement about the project that was completed in June 2012: “We are aiming to make people of the Metro become more aware of what public art can do towards creating an interactive urban space and also to engender a feeling of pride in one’s City.”

Walking down from the top of the Hill of Route 67, starting at the Donkin Reserve and the cylindrical voting structure, walking down to the Campanile and Govan Mbeki Avenue in the centre of town, the yellow and white crosses are drawn onto the ground leading to the stairway and are attached to a scaffolding-like structure resembling a tipi. The crosses are marked with the names of Port Elizabeth youth.

They communicate a sense of belonging and camaraderie for Port Elizabeth youth to be able to do what needs to be done to make a difference in their own community.

If this is how it felt for me, I can imagine how it feels for the artists who contributed

Photo by Chris Allen The variety of the work along Route 67 provides a sense of diversity evident in the struggle for freedom.

to the structuring of Route 67. The personal touches of the local talent and those who make up the community allow for a sense of camaraderie and belonging in post-conflict South Africa when many youth may feel like the liberation struggle is long gone.

The fact that local young artists contributed to Route 67 makes me feel extremely proud of the young talent in Port Elizabeth and South Africa and proud to be part of a community able to tell our history through such beautiful and meaningful ways.

“I consider being selected as one of the artists for the route as a huge achievement,” said Umtata who was born Mkhonto Gwazela. “This project allows artists to celebrate the industry in Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape.”

Umtata is one of the artists featured in the showcase and has a B-tech qualification from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Fine Art and a Certificate from Oxford University College.

Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape were the home ground for many struggle heroes.

That something like this can be showcased and celebrated makes me proud. That we as a community can find something as great as this to celebrate and be happy about, and the arts are not overshadowed by our problems. Nevertheless, the walk through

Route 67 makes me feel that we are on the brink of alleviating the problems of those who still are suffering, and that the beautiful city of Port Elizabeth and the Province of the Eastern Cape will make much more progress in the decades ahead.

Photo by Chris Allen

Sir Rufane Donkin honored the memory of his wife Elizabeth, “one of the most perfect human beings who has given her name to the town below.”

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That They Know Who They Are Makes Them Special The people of the Eastern Cape and the People of the Delta have a remarkable spirit that keeps them together

By Jon Haywood When the auditorium had filled for a community meeting in Port Elizabeth, the crowd erupted into an amazing session of song and dance, not unlike scenes of celebration in my home, the Mississippi Delta of the United States. I could not understand what they were singing and shouting, but I could feel their commitment to community, and their reference to their past for addressing current challenges.

Similarly, the Delta carries a sense of

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Southern culture and community that is unique. Indeed, James C. Cobb called it “the most Southern place on earth.”

Clearly, the Delta is unapologetically Southern, and South Africa is unapologetically African. Both places have their ups, but it is the downs that attract the most attention.

Similarly, the differences between the haves and have-nots in the Delta are shocking. For example, the Alluvian Hotel or the Viking Range Cooking School in Mississippi are both upscale.

In nearby Baptist Town, vagrancy and litter characterize a neighborhood filled with substandard housing.

Although these two neighborhoods are within minutes of each other, they truly are miles apart in standards of living.

In the townships outside of neatly manicured neighborhoods of Port Elizabeth, there are dwellings with dirt floors and no running water.

The poverty in the townships is raw.

In the Delta, the poor also suffer from poverty. They have lost hope. In fact, when I talk of returning to the Delta, I’m almost scolded by people (both black and white) who think it is a waste of time to try to help.

Similarly, when I visited the townships, I felt that South Africans have given up on people there. Port Elizabeth has an abundance of resources — suitable living, grocery stores, spacious parks and sidewalks.

Moreover, the City of Port Elizabeth works with the Nelson Mandela Bay Development Agency, a private organization that plans

and completes development projects for the metropolitan area (and even for the townships). However, the townships are terribly underserved and underdeveloped.

Men wander around with nothing to do, young children head households without parents, and heaps of trash sit in several public areas. It seems inhumane for a nation like South Africa, with a bustling economy, to allow any of this to happen in its post-apartheid society, and South Africa’s government says it wants to change the dreadful conditions.

The poverty I saw in the townships is eerily similar to what Robert F. Kennedy saw on his tour of the Mississippi Delta during the 1960s. Kennedy saw crumbling shacks and little children running around with distended stomachs. That is how life in the townships is in 2012.

Moreover, the rate of HIV/AIDS is alarming, for the most part, because of traditional beliefs and myths. Some South Africans believe a healthy-looking person could not possibly have HIV/AIDS. In the Delta, the rates are alarming. Some people won’t get tested, because somehow they know they couldn’t possibly be one of “those” people — someone connected to several sexual partners or a homosexual.

However, some men have sex with other men secretly, even though they do not hide their relationships with several women.

Police officers and security guards seem to be everywhere in the nice tourist and development areas of Port Elizabeth. However, I saw no police officers in the densely populated townships

where there is a great deal of crime.

The same can be said about the Delta.

In Cleveland (a college town) police officers are everywhere in neighborhoods near the Delta State campus and Cotton Row (the business district). In the working class neighborhoods, fewer police are on patrol.

Is that because folks really do not care about whether working folk feel safe?

Law enforcement is not the only element lacking in the Delta and in the townships of South Africa. Both are full of “food deserts” — places with few stores selling fresh fruits and vegetables. I did not see a place where residents could buy fresh food, but I did see a KFC restaurant. In the Delta, more than 84 percent of residents have little access to fresh fruits and vegetables. I am not sure if the city of Port Elizabeth has plans for distributing fresh food in the townships, but in communities like Cleveland and Greenwood, farmers’ markets have opened. Thus, even residents on ”food stamps” can purchase fresh food from local farmers and merchants.

During the apartheid era, the townships of South Africa suffered from higher rates of crime and joblessness. The apartheid government chose to smother the economic potential of the area, and discrimination seems to continue. The Delta suffers from the same problem.

For generations, various European groups swept into South Africa and mulled its resources and overpowered indigenous groups. Europeans were the ruling class and could control access to the best of South Africa.

The same can be said for the Delta.

For years, cotton was king, bringing unbelievable wealth to fat-cat cotton planters and merchants who maintained a black underclass of workers. Eventually Delta-produced cotton lost its commercial importance. The fat-cat planters and merchants eventually died off or found business elsewhere, but many of those black workers and their families remained, and for decades the Delta has been left with no real economic strength.

The joblessness rate is high, no real political competition exists and few young professionals live in the region.

African Americans are more than 70 percent of the Delta population and the Delta is heavily Democratic. In Congressional elections, a Republican candidate usually competes against the Democratic incumbent, but the GOP has not had a serious challenger for years.

Young people have given up on the Delta, and the de facto one-party system seems to guarantee the Delta is near death.

Economic development councils have invested in tourism and teacher training programs in an attempt to revive the area, but nothing has worked well enough to provide much hope.

In South Africa more than 18 years ago, the apartheid government chose to restrict the free market system and the political process. Today, the people of South Africa are demanding that the government right the wrongs of the apartheid era. The Delta is a different story; the people have chosen to halt the political process for more than

30 years, and nothing of substance has been done to combat the problems.

As a lifelong resident of the Delta, I am inspired by the conviction that the Delta can change for the better and that the region has a special place in American culture. Indeed, you cannot spend time with the people of the Delta and the people of South Africa without falling in love with their zest for life, their sense of community and the very real sense that they possess a spirit that finds joy where others might see sorrow.

These are incredible people.

If the Delta can find ways to take advantage of the best parts of its culture, the people may be able to preserve their traditions and culture. The Delta has made initial steps to promote blues music and civil rights history. Similarly, the townships need infrastructure and major social engineering to showcase who they really are.

Clearly, the people of the Delta and the people of the townships have not lost the remarkable spirit that keeps them together. They know who they are, and that makes them so special.

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This Land Is

In My Blood Photo by Student’s Name

The floor mosaic leads to the stone pyramid in honour of Sir Donkin’s wife, Elizabeth. This mosaic was created by a multicultural team of Port Elizabeth artists, representing their common passion for the city, a meeting of the old with the new.

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During the early 1990s, our leaders stepped away from the expected and made a difference for each of us.

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By Kate du Toit here is drumming in the distance. A lone black man is sitting cross-legged on the mosaic ground facing out to sea, eyes closed, bongo drum in his lap, the morning sun on his face, braids swaying as he moves his head to his own rhythm. The city centre is below.

Not very long ago, this man would have been arrested. Not because he’s drumming, but because he is black.

It is early. The sun is just up. This is the prettiest time of the day to see the centre of Port Elizabeth, a city on the southernmost tip of Africa.

An old Chinese tourist couple stares up at the 12-meter-wide flag, grey hairs shimmering, camera around the neck. A man is walking fast across the open space, toward town, taxis and work. Large pieces of artwork can be seen in different parts of the open ground. Every piece has meaning.

Eighteen years ago a miracle happened.

Civil war did not come to South Africa. Our leaders broke from an African stereotype we all are tired of hearing about.

Look for information on civil wars in Africa, and the list seems endless. About half the nations in Africa have had a civil war during the last five decades.

These and other wars over control of land in Africa have cost millions of lives, and millions have been displaced.

For many, war has raged in their African nation for their entire lives.

They know nothing but war.

But, thankfully, in South Africa during the early 1990s, our leaders veered boldly away from the expected. F. W. de Klerk stepped aside, and Nelson Mandela (1994) declared, “We place our vision of a new constitutional order for South Africa on the table not as conquerors, prescribing to the conquered. We speak as fellow citizens to heal the wounds of the past with the intent of constructing a new order based on justice for all.”

On the first day of Parliament, he walked

in with his arm around de Klerk and then sat in the same seat from which de Klerk had led apartheid during his presidency — also the seat previous apartheid presidents had sat in when they had decided again and again to leave Mandela and his fellow freedom fighters in jail. Time after time they had decided that segregation of races should continue and only some should have rights.

The international media hailed South Africa on that day in 1994, relieved not to be reporting on yet another war. They came, they felt the pride, the respite of the nation. And they wrote about it: “When history delivers something that looks like a miracle … the mind experiences a kind of electricity, the thrill of beginning, of seeing a new world. That was what it felt like last week to watch South Africa. Here was a spectacle of true transformation.” (Time Magazine, 1994) “The spectacle today shattered not only the South African tradition of minority dominion but also the stereotype of liberation parliaments, for here the former prisoners were sworn in alongside their former jailers, returned exiles sat across from recycled racists, and the descendants of the system joined its victims and the next of kin.” (BBC, 1994) “The power that had belonged to whites since they first settled on this cape 342 years ago passed today to a Parliament as diverse as any in the world, a cast of proud survivors who began their work by electing Nelson Mandela to be the first black president of South Africa.” (The New York Times, 1994) The world could scarcely believe a man could refer to his jailer of 27 years as, “…one of the greatest reformers, one of the greatest sons of South Africa.” (Mandela, 1994) Eighteen years on, and the world is still watching.

Port Elizabeth, the city I am now looking over, is particularly interesting in the history of South Africa. It is the largest city in the Eastern Cape Province, the area where the Xhosa tribe originates. The

African National Congress was originally founded by Xhosa men, most of whom were born in villages in the interior of the Eastern Cape. Nelson Mandela. Walter Sisulu. Steve Biko. Oliver Tambo. Thabo Mbeki. Today these men are famous throughout the world for the part they played in the anti-apartheid struggle. The city is famous for its role, too. Here, Steve Biko was arrested and beaten repeatedly for more than three weeks, eventually slipping into a coma and then dying whilst being transported to Pretoria, naked in the back of a van. The first UmKonto we Sizwe cell was established in Red Location, a township just outside the city centre.

It is the centre of this same city where the sound of the drums now resonates.

It is here, at the Donkin Reserve, where Route 67 culminates in a series of artworks on open, green ground at the top of a hill overlooking the harbour and the city centre.

As I stand looking at the huge, metallic Fish Bird sculpture, the stone pyramid in honour of Elizabeth Donkin in the background catches my eye, reminding me of a history before apartheid and the question so often on the minds of foreigners when one travels.

You’re white. From South Africa?

The day before, I am sitting on a little veranda. It’s a sunny winter day, the kind for which Port Elizabeth is famous. A tray sits on the table in front of us, some biscuits in a bowl, tea cups waiting to be filled. My grandparents on my mother’s side are 85 and 84 years old. They look their ages but mentally they’re quicker, it seems, than most people I know. My grandfather comes out with a piece of paper, his section of the family tree: Names, dates of birth and death neatly typed onto paper. Emotion removed.

1807 – Henriek Desmond Lupnof from Lupnof, Poland.

Why? I ask.

Why what? He replies.

Well, why did they come?

It seems almost incredible, as I sit there looking at the names, that these people made a decision 205 years ago to come to a completely uncivilised place for the rest of their lives. Would I move away from everything I know to live in a land with a completely different climate, disease, wildlife, “natives” defending their land …seemingly imminent death.

Completely cut off and separated for the rest of my life from those I left behind. Why would they do that?

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His answer is shocking.

It was a kind of escape. A search for freedom. They were peasant farmers.

Desperately poor. Barely surviving.

This was their chance to start again, to make new lives for themselves.

I am taken aback.

And here I am standing in the middle of Route 67, a representation of freedom fought for and gained — a freedom that those who lived here had until my ancestors arrived in their own search for freedom. Frontier wars, thousands of lives lost, segregation, separation, untold suffering … all because we all wanted our own version of freedom.

My grandmother’s ancestors came to South Africa in 1820 as part of the 4,000 settlers who arrived from the United Kingdom to strengthen the European presence in the Eastern Cape. Some from Scotland. Some from England. Also poor.

Also looking for a new start, a kind of freedom from their endless struggles. My father’s ancestors, I discover (after a long detailed email from my father), also arrived originally from England and Ireland.

I walk across the grass, along the exquisite mosaic floor and slowly along the “Voting Line,” silhouettes of people standing as if in line to vote. Children are also part of the line and those at the front stand holding their newly acquired ID books, a symbol of their recognition as true South African citizens. It seems strange that they should have to have a green book with numbers in it to feel at home in a place their ancestors had lived in longer than my ancestors. A green book my ancestors created. This, I realise again, is what makes our history, our nation, our politics, so complicated — so interesting.

I begin to stroll down the hill.

His name is Banga. From Zimbabwe. He has been selling handmade leather bags to South Africans and tourists in the same location for seven years. The difference for the last three years is that he has been provided with an official space from which to sell. It is in the middle of the pedestrian only section at the top of Govan Mbeki Avenue, the main street running along the city centre. It is a large metal cubicle with a table and doors he can lock his items in

Photo by Student’s Name

A silhouette of Nelson Mandela leads the “Voting Line” of South Africans ready to vote in the first free democratic elections.

overnight. In the day he opens them and uses it to display his goods. The Mandela Bay Development Agency, that instituted Route 67, also has been developing different areas within the city, and the environmental upgrading of this section of the Port Elizabeth main street was one of their first highly successful projects.

My life has been very different since then, Bango tells me. I feel accepted here.

I can give, too. And I like coming to my work. Every day my friends are here. We are all the same. Different blood. But we want the same things. This city is good to me.

I ask Banga if he perhaps knows the man who is playing drums up at the Donkin.

Yes. He is there every morning. He welcomes in the day, says Banga.

Where is he from?

Mozambique. He tells me his father and older brother were killed in the civil war. He was only 5 when it started, but his eldest brother was 18 so he had to fight. His three other brothers were also too young when the war started. But it carried on. They got older. And then they had to fight, too.

His third eldest brother lost both his legs to a land mine, but they were just glad he survived. As a young boy he had to leave his family home and live in refugee camps.

At 22, he heard that South Africa had a black president and so he made a very long journey to the border of South Africa and claimed refugee status. The sea seemed like the most peaceful place he could go, and so Port Elizabeth became his home.

A recent immigrant to a nation once again promising wealth and freedom from the hardships of life back home, Banga helps me realise for the first time what freedom means to me, and I cannot help feeling a kind of companionship with him.

Freedom is knowing those who make up the city I live in, regardless of their culture.

It is knowing my history. It is appreciating the hardships my ancestors faced so that I could have all the luxuries I have today.

Some might say this isn’t my land, and I might, at times, feel a bit estranged.

But this is my land.

And freedom is knowing that this land is in my blood as much as anyone’s.

Bibliography: Marrow, L. 1994. www.time.com . [Online]. Available: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,980663,00.html . [20 August 2012].

BBC. 1994. [Online]. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/10/newsid_2661000/2661503.stm. [20 August 2012] • Keller, B. May 9, 1994. ‘Mandela is Named President, Closing the Era of Apartheid’. New York Times. • Port Elizabeth. N.d. [Online]. Available: http://www.port-elizabeth.org.za/history.html. [19 August 2012].

• Red Location Museum. 2006. [Online]. Available: http://www.freewebs.com/redlocationmuseum/. [19 August 2012]. • Franco Frescura. N.d. [Online}. Available: http://www. francofrescura.co.za/urban-issues-PE.html. [19th August 20120]

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

Who is this Woman of Steel?

Does such a woman exist anywhere?

By Okhule Dotwana

W

ho is this woman who can live peacefully in one of the most notorious crime hot spots in the Eastern Cape?

A woman made of steel.

A woman who cannot be harmed.

Does she exist anywhere in South Africa?

She stands serenely along Route 67, near the road in Central, one of the most dangerous places in Nelson Mandela Bay. Who is she?

Does she exist anywhere in South Africa?

During the last five years alone, countless violent crimes have been committed against women.

A young woman crawled her way out of a river, where she had been left to die. As she walked around in search of help, she held her head down close to her throat to try to stop the bleeding. She had been gang raped on her way back from work by three men, who slit her throat and threw her in a nearby river, thinking she was dead.

Fortunately, these men were found, arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A woman, who had been abused by her husband for a number of years, died in hospital after what would be a fatal beating. Her husband came home and was set off by something insignificant. He was beating her when the housekeeper rushed into the room and tried to pull the man away from his wife.

He left the house and returned almost immediately with a bottle of paraffin, poured it over his wife and set her on fire.

By this time, the woman’s teenage child was also in the room together with the housekeeper, trying to put out the flames.

The man was never prosecuted.

In the middle of the night, a man broke into a house and raped a twoyear-old child. When the mother of the

child walked in on him, he ran off. Word spread about this man, and eventually he got drunk with a couple of friends in a bar and bragged about raping a child “as small as a puppy.” The people in the bar turned him over to the police.

Even though there was the child’s mother, who saw him, and the people in the bar who heard him confess, there apparently wasn’t enough evidence to keep him behind bars, and he is walking free today.

A teenage girl was feeling ill so her mother suggested she go to a traditional healer who would give her something to make her feel better. When she arrived at the man’s house, the girl was told to undress. She felt uneasy, but this man was a healer, and she did not think there was a reason to fear him.

However, he raped her repeatedly.

He eventually was sentenced to life imprisonment.

A man saw his stepdaughter leaving a boy’s house early in the morning. Knowing how strict her mother is, the stepfather told the child that if she did not sleep with him, he would tell her mother that she slept over at a boy’s house. The teenage girl was coerced into sleeping with the stepfather.

After the stepfather was found out, the case went to court, but the judge decided not to prosecute him, stating that he is the breadwinner of the house and the family would suffer if he went to jail. Thus, in addition to the trauma of being raped by this man, the girl had to live in the same house as her rapist.

The lot of lesbian women is even worse. They get attacked simply for being lesbians. South Africa has seen an upsurge of “corrective rape” cases, where lesbian women are gang raped by men who believe this will “cure” them of homosexuality.

These are the realities of many women and children in South Africa and the world.

The woman who stands secure and free from harm along Route 67 really does not exist. She is a myth.

Women and children are not safe outside.

They are not safe at school or at work. They are not safe around people they should trust, like their friends, their doctors and their priests. They are not safe even in their own homes, where they walk on eggshells around their husbands or live in fear of being molested by their fathers.

Many women in South Africa do not feel secure enough to stand where they please or go where they want.

This is why, every year in South Africa, a campaign is run called “The 16 Days of Activism for no violence against women and children.” It runs every year from 25 November to 10 December to bring awareness to the 16 kinds of abuse that are committed against women and children worldwide.

I would love to be made out of steel like the woman on Route 67. To be safe from harm. To walk out from the house trusting that no one will attack me. To watch the news or read the paper or have a conversation that has nothing to do with abused women and children.

Does such a woman exist anywhere in the world?

Photo by Chris Allen

She stands serenely along Route 67, one of the most dangerous places in Nelson Mandela Bay.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

15

Let Us Have Faith in Ourselves as Africans We must not remain in the shadow of the West.

By Lisa Weideman The nation is going to the dogs. The radio tells me so, every morning while I contemplate my decaffeinated roast. The miners and policemen are killing each other; the politicians are killing the people; and inflation is killing my pocket. The petrol price went up yesterday, and already we’re being warned of future hikes.

These are a sign of the times — a sign of the falsity of everything modernity that has led us to believe: Consume!

Acquire!

More is more!

Clearly, the mass-produced product (and the system that made it) have been deified.

“Please sir, I don’t want any more.”

“What?”

“Please sir, I don’t want any … more.”

“No more?”

Consumption has become the defining feature of modern societies and, until recently, it seemed that Africa was lagging in the race for acquisition.

However, perhaps as a result of the dreaded “globalization” or other external influences, post-colonial Africa is doing its best to become an accomplished consumer.

We have built enormous shopping centres and have filled them with the finest luxury imports Asia has to offer. Our dustbins overflow with plastics en route to the

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Photo by Chris Allen

Western culture is evident in communication technologies that are attracting people everywhere and South Africans are not exceptions.

landfills that bulge and groan. Children watch television more than they play outside — choosing cool, dark, interiors over the warmth of African summers.

When I was young, I knew the word “enough,” and I heard it very often from my parents. These days, children are born into excess and “enough” is afforded a negative value.

Our poor, beautiful land.

In Port Elizabeth, we have a Route 67 that honours the struggles that occurred in order to realize democracy almost 20 years ago. Some of the art depicts freedom and inspires optimism in those who notice it.

I think it was a great idea. It is the type of project that makes you proud to be a

South African; makes you grateful to live in these times; makes you blind to reality.

We are not free. Being able to express opinions and hold the hand of another colour does not make us free. Even the politicians — the corrupt and the fair — are restricted. Invisible forces, such as the World Bank and the IMF, hold our liberties at ransom. Our economies were made by the gods of consumption, and we have been created in their image.

His tatty clothes matched his ruddy face. The little boy scratched his ashy skin, and looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“Does your daddy have a car?”

“Yes, he does,” I replied.

“Does your mommy have a car?”

“Yes, she does, too.” not immediately a resource that A disbelieving stare. noticeable. will not last “Are they big cars?”

Camouflaged sheep our lifetime?

From a young age we are taught that wander around, The damage of consumerism will deliver happiness. In content — even these short-term, the townships, some low-income parents slightly poetic. get-rich-quick would rather buy a BMW than invest in They graze and operations will be education or food security for their children. chew and stare irreparable. Water The image of wealth is all-important. into the distance, will be poisoned, In the suburbs, some homeowners buy contemplating their the land will become toxic, houses they will never pay off and too fine quality of life. people will fall ill, much food. They can afford the finer things, Most things and animals will die. and so they squander their wealth on seem slow here.

The (transnational) unnecessary items that, more often than The horizon corporations know not, only feed the landfills that provide offers no limits to this, but they a scenic backdrop to the poor areas. But, the fresh Karoo continue with the image of wealth is all-important. sky. The desert their plans. In Our people are getting fat. The politicians plants sunbathe their view, Africa creak as they climb the platforms, and while whispering is only as valuable their expensive clothing sits tightly on appreciative as its resources. their potbellies and backsides. Gone are messages to the It is all very the days of activity. Now they relish tea soil. There are many well to blame the breaks and lunches paid for by the public. wild animals. Most foreigners, but it The general public follow suit, and are timid or match also is essential support the western corporations that the colours of the Photo by Chris Allen that the South sell us sugar for bread and cruelty for koppies, and so The market place in Port Elizabeth hums with activAfrican state claims burgers. Those who can afford to indulge one feels honoured ity and diverse peoples in this international hub. responsibility in these dubious foods regularly. Those to see them. for its choices. who cannot afford it ensure that they It is a perfect By allowing the extraction of this gas, are first in line on payday. “Streetwise” system with a death sentence. and the destruction of many parts of carries a whole new meaning nowadays.

Various oil and gas companies have the Karoo, the state is following the Our factories pump out noxious clouds been granted the rights to proceed with capitalist rationality that we, as South that hover over the cities. On breezeless exploratory hydraulic fracturing operations Africans, must learn to refute. days, even the in certain parts of We cannot continue to model ourselves revered Mother this terrain. Voices on consumerist Western policies. At City finds her lungs raised in outrage some point, we have to refuse a second misty with smog. have been somewhat portion and be content with our adequate “We must run, quelled by promises wealth. Before we look to harmful while others walk” of jobs, money activities to “enrich” the economy, let — but at what cost? and investment. us consider cleaning up the corruption Other lands have It has been and disproportional wealth that pollutes grown weary of predicted that the government. Let us promote leaders who their development reserves of gas will are willing to downgrade their salaries marathons, last a mere 30 years, for the benefit of charity — as in Malawi although they but opinions differ. and Uruguay. These things do happen. would not admit it.

Many believe the Let us free ourselves from the However, the operations are being cycle of consumption and recognize Earth is rebelling, founded on lies and the wealth in helping others. and Africa should the jobs will be for We will get nowhere while the join her cause. skilled foreigners, extraordinarily rich continue to enslave Fewer than 200 not for unskilled the poor. We need to question our motives kilometers inland locals. The money and priorities. We need to understand from Port Elizabeth, will line the pockets that the age of individualism is dead. lies the beautiful of the rich and only As Africans, let us have faith in semi-desert area further cripple the ourselves to forge a new future that known as the perpetually poor. does not lie in the shadow of the West, Karoo. It is vast, Who can speak Photo by Chris Allen but looks to the light in the East to brown and thriving of the positives While it may take different forms in different culilluminate the way to freedom. with life that is of investing in tures, beauty is appreciated among all peoples.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

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The Path to Greatness Lies in Daily Commitment to Selflessness We are reminded that sacrifice and suffering are to be welcomed in service to others.

By Rahmat Luvuyo Nomvete “Wasn’t that awesome guys?”

We burst out laughing. Balisa had asked this question so many times.

“Yes, it was, my dear,” replied Kristi. “It always feels nice to be of some service to your fellow human beings.”

Five of us had spent 67 minutes on Mandela Day at a charity event for Aurora Special Care Centre where physically and mentally disabled children in Port Elizabeth receive care.

We had decided to take the Route 67 walk afterwards, to wind down and reflect on the day. We disembarked the taxi near the Campanile and began our uphill journey towards the South African flag.

“Isn’t it just fascinating, hey, how one man was able to inspire the whole world?” Mandla said, referring to Nelson Mandela.

“Once a year, an entire nation is moved to perform acts of selfless service for their communities. All because of one guy.

“What he was able to achieve for this country is incredible.

“But what was so special about this guy? There are so many great leaders out there, and there were even more in the past, but they were not able to inspire and liberate their people.

“Tata’s achievements remain unmatched in the history of our continent. What is it about him that makes him so remarkable?”

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

Sanda interrupted, “Why don’t we think about this question as we’re walking up the hill. When we get to the top, we can share what we think Mandela’s greatest quality is.”

We burst out laughing again. This time because we knew Sanda’s real intentions. He was tired, and we had a long way to climb. He wanted us to walk in silence to get to the flag more quickly.

Nevertheless, we all agreed and continued the walk in silence.

No matter how many times one takes this walk, it always is possible to see for the first time something stunningly beautiful in the detail of the artwork.

After we reached the top and spent a moment looking at the flag at the top of the hill, we settled on the “Windward” seats.

“Okay, what are your thoughts, guys?” Sanda asked.

“Well, I think it was Nelson Mandela’s emphasis on knowledge and learning,” Kristi said.

“I read somewhere that while he was imprisoned, Madiba not only read many books, but he also encouraged others to do the same. He felt it was important to gain as much knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. This is what made him such a wise and remarkable leader.”

Balisa agreed. “I think it also has to do with his detachment and freedom from prejudice,” she said.

“Apparently Madiba always emphasized unity.”

Mandla said he had fought against both white and black domination and, as a matter of principle, he even spoke kindly of those who were responsible for his persecution.

“You know,” Mandla said, “Another thing might be his willingness to accept the hardships and difficulties of life.

“Madiba spent almost three decades in prison, right?...

But to come out of it with no feelings of remorse means that he had accepted the hardships of his life and didn’t make a big deal out of it.

“He understood well, that in order to make a great change in the world, sacrifice is needed.

“Sacrifice and suffering are not only to be expected.

They are to be welcomed.

They seem to form a vital part of the path to greatness.”

The sun was setting, casting a warm, red glow.

“You know, all of these Bradley Levack explains the meaning things are within our of the art patterns on Route 67. capacity,” Sanda said.

We agreed.

“Look at the racial differences in this group. Isn’t this a sign of our own freedom from the prejudices that divide the world?”

Balisa nodded and said, “Yoh, hayi, today was awesome guys.”

Artwork on Route 67 celebrates the heroes of the fight for freedom from apartheid.

Photo by Chris Allen

The Port Elizabeth Lighthouse is the site of Route 67, depicting the long struggle for freedom and celebrating the heroes who led the fight.

I Moved to a Place

Called Central The grass doesn’t get any greener, the birds any freer and the beach any cleaner than here.

By Ziphozakhe Hlobo

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

2013 Reflections on Freedom

21

I

grew up in a black suburb of Port Elizabeth, one of the most convenient places in South Africa to settle down and have a family.

I had a simple upbringing, walking 10 to 20 minutes to school and church.

I did not get out except when it really was necessary or when my family was going out. In any case, we had to be careful of those dirty boys from that dirty Veeplaas next to our neighbourhood.

In all the neighbouring townships, the kids from my neighbourhood were known as spoilt brats and snobs whose parents bought them everything they wanted.

If you were from my neighbourhood and could not afford to buy something at the school tuck shop, the other kids would say, “How can you not afford it when you are from Kwa-magxaki?”1 To be honest, I did not relate to its lifestyle. My family life was not the norm, and I had more in common with the children in the townships. My aunt had taken me to live with her in the suburb when my parents moved to Cape Town.

When I enrolled at the university, I had to move to the city, not far from a place called Central, to be close to school.

“Central?”

“You will be staying in Central, that place full of prostitutes and criminals?”

My family was reluctant to give in to this idea and, to be quite honest, so was I. However, Central was the only place where I could live because I had applied late and had to take the accommodation that was available.

When I told friends from my neighbourhood about my upcoming move, the response was, “That place is as good as these dirty townships full of illegal foreigners!”

The infamous Central was known for absorbing young people into its night life and making them drug dealers or prostitutes and then spitting them out once they caught some dreadful disease.

It was supposedly a place where Nigerians, or as they are called, amakwerekwere,2 Photo by Chris Allen would lure young girls into prostitution.

A statue of Queen Elizabeth still stands in front of the original city library and looks over the City Hall and Central was to Port Elizabeth what Market Square at the start of Govan Mbeki.

Hillbrow is to Johannesburg. In fact, while I was still in high school, a sex tape of a girl in our school was making all the buzz. People were saying that of her classmates told us, and some people were convinced that amakwerekwere had drugged her and sold the video on the Internet. this was true. The sex tape was the biggest scandal in the school. It “She thinks she is clever, hanging around those dirty Nigerians even spread throughout my neighbourhood and the ones close by. and sleeping with them. Maybe they paid her,” teachers said.

Distressful as it may have been to the girl, I enjoyed the “She is a porn star, and that is how she pays for her fees,” one buzz because it helped me befriend some of the coolest kids

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

who had never noticed me in my neighbourhood. I would be walking to a shop or to the library, and someone I have never spoken to would say, “So, what happened to that girl?”

After the scandal, the sex tape became a way by which our teachers warned us not to go to Central because, “Look at what happened to her.” It was our parents’ tool to emphasize the danger in the streets of Central, and we were not even to think about going to that place — otherwise we would end up like her. One of our teachers told us that in Central there was a strip club that he had read about in the newspapers, but whenever we asked him in which paper he had read it from, he simply laughed.

I was going to stay in Central, where daughters had disappeared and young sons had become killers and drug dealers.

I attempted to convince my worried family that I would not be swallowed up and that I would devote myself to my studies.

When my cousin dropped me off at South Point residence for the first time, she noticed that there was a strip club named Club Erotica just across the road and the look on her face was priceless.

“Club Erotica? That’s a dirty name. I’m sure dirty things are happening in that club. This is surely no place to raise kids.”

But I was not going to go to Club Erotica or any other club. My friends and I planned visits to the Opera House on nights when one of our friends from a nearby Arts College was performing. We were introduced to his friends, who also were artists and who had lived in Central for a long time.

Soon I was drawn to the non-conventional life of artists who work at unconventional times, refuse to dress “proper,” often smoke weed and do not care that people think less of the work they do.

One night I was introduced to an actor, and while conversing with him, I was stunned to learn he was an atheist. Church had been everything to me. Nonetheless, I was more drawn to him than any other guy I had met during my stay in Central.

When he did not ask for my number that night, I found out where he lived and thought I might accidentally bump into him and have a chat. When I finally did bump into him, we had a long conversation.

“Can I have your number?” he asked, just as we were about to part.

On nights that followed, the visits were frequent. We hung out until midnight, tirelessly walking around Central, talking about life, love, art and what the government could do about Central’s rundown buildings.

We went to the Opera House. We listened to the desperate voices and songs of his fellow artists and whispered our criticisms. At the end of the show, we would walk out of the theatre with many other artists who spoke of plans to leave Port Elizabeth because of lack of opportunities, but the next year they would still be there.

When I went back home during the end-of-the-year holidays, I walked the clean streets of that quiet suburb in which I had grown up and longed for the dirty hills of Central.

“I miss Central,” I told my sister. She frowned and asked, “What do you miss about it?”

I stammered a few words, but I could see that she was not satisfied with my answer.

After the holidays, I took a taxi back. The streets were busy and loud cash collectors were sticking their heads out of the taxis’ broken windows, shouting, “Town, Njoli, New Bright!”3 We passed the townships close to my home where jobless people were walking in their pyjamas. Barefoot children stood on the side of the road waiting for a green light. Then, holding each other’s hands, they nervously crossed the road.

When I arrived in Central, I heard from a woman who was selling fruit that, “There were municipality workers’ riots yesterday.” The rubbish bins were opened and public phones and road signs had been vandalized.

In 2010, the whole nation was anticipating the World Cup, and “Love this place!” was written on a tall building next to the taxi terminus. Whenever I walked past that building, I remembered the smell of urine next to the taxis, the peaceful park where I often sat facing the coast, the beautiful lights that made Parliament Street alive and the disco lights coming out of the clubs. For me, Central has it all.

In 2010, the streets were blooming with people selling everything from hair bands to soccer balls to Vuvuzelas.

“Buy a bottle of coke in a store, and get a free Vuvuzela,” Coca Cola adverts proclaimed.

Contrary to those busy streets next to the taxi terminus, the Northern areas of Central were peaceful and calm, and my friends and I spent our Sundays at the park watching mothers and fathers take their children and pets out to play.

I love that place!

I love the mutual understanding we have with our weather, which abruptly turns from happy to sad to depressed, forcing the sea to cry and blow a chill and causing unrest to the entire city. I love the deep coloured green, yellow and red peppers sold by hawkers on the streets. Sometimes you buy from them, and they struggle to count your change. I love the tongues you hear in the corners of Central, tourists smiling and taking pictures, standing at the Donkin Reserve and Queen Victoria powerlessly and idly standing in front of the Main Library. I love how black people walking at Whites Road despise her and wish to take her down. I love how she is part of our history.

On Saturday nights, all you see in Central are students going up Donkin to Parliament Street to dance and share drinks with their friends. I love how impossible it sometimes is to sleep with drunks noisily making their way down the street.

When you ask them not to make noise, their eyes say, “Why are you sleeping on a Saturday night anyway?” and you give up without a fight.

I love how they sometimes say, “Oh, sorry, sorry,” and when you leave, they laugh.

I love the calmness on a Sunday, the way the city refuses to wake up, even when the sun shines through its windows. Sundays remind me that I live in one of the calmest cities in South Africa.

The grass doesn’t get any greener, the birds any freer and the beach any cleaner than on a Sunday afternoon in Port Elizabeth.

I love the silence of Sunday night.

[1] Informal settlement outside the city [2] Derogatory term referred to black foreigners by black South Africans. It is a term that mocks foreigners for not being able to speak any South African language, and to some black South Africans, the sound of the foreigners’ language is primitive and sounds like they are saying “kwirikwirikwiri” [3] The stops where the taxi is going to offload.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

23

Freedom is the

Most Cherished

Possession of a

South African Unfortunately, for most of us its value is lost. Few are able to describe it and explain its significance.

By Andrew Howarth It is only those who have lived without freedom who know what it is.

I do not.

I always have been free. Our nation was reinvented, and we became a citizenry scarred by years of separation, timidly looking each other in the eye. For the first time, equal.

I will never understand all the dimensions of the era my parents experienced. For this reason, most foreigners and post-1990 South Africans cannot understand the value of freedom in this nation.

Things have changed. I was born in a hospital where people of different colours were born and died in the same rooms.

I live in a time when people who varied in pigment could

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

marry one another, live next to each other, use the same bathroom, be buried in the same cemetery, sun tan on the same beaches, shop in the same stores, learn the same subjects, study the same degrees and travel in the same transport.

Freedom is something always assured to me.

I grew up next to other races, my colour sometimes bearing the grunt of protest or disdain by older people — ones with dead eyes who did not see me but merely classed me as “one of them” or better put, “not one of us.” For some, the past is not easily forgotten and the present is not easily accepted.

I went to school in 1996 — a mixed race school.

It did not seem like a big deal at the time. Education for me was a right. I grew up and went to school with other races and was taught in my home language — all along taking this for granted.

I just expected it, never thinking about what had been lost so that I could draw doodles in my exercise book.

On June 16, 1976, Mbuyisa Makhubo carried a small boy after he had been shot by police. This was Hector Pieterson.

He wanted to be taught in his own language. He died in protest against a government that was against him.

It was too late for me to join the struggle, too late to endure the bitter grip of Brink’s dry white season, too late to be exiled for a free voice or imprisoned for one that was not tolerated.

I did not witness the terrors of the burning rats dug into the enemies of the people, or endure the rubber pellets or batons of the police. I was not alive when Hector Pieterson and 4,000 others took to the streets. I was not there when Biko and the others were sentenced to that island, nor did I grow up in a nation shunned by the world. I was too young to walk tall like Madiba.

It was too late for me to throw rocks at police cars in protest of an unethical government, or serve a sentence on that island. I never experienced the exclusiveness of hospitals, schools, beaches or bathrooms.

My homeland is in dire need of good people, people who not only understand the right to freedom but also the value of it. No longer are we shackled by apartheid.

Freedom is more than just a word used by fat politicians in speeches.

Freedom is the most cherished commodity a South African can possess, even if sometimes it is vastly under appreciated.

Freedom for South Africans was provided by courageous and bold leaders. After years of fighting for what is just, they asked us carry to carry the torch of freedom with pride and dignity. They believed in a South Africa that went beyond racial abhorrence, beyond discrimination of any form, beyond hatred. They believed in a free South Africa, and 49 million of us enjoy the result of their successful struggle.

For me, freedom is something I already have received.

Its value is lost to me. Indeed, its value is lost to most of us. True, we sing its praises, but if asked what it means, few are able to describe it and explain its significance.

For me, freedom is something I have been provided.

Similarly, I have a computer. I eat snacks while I use it, and I have electric lights and running water.

I am not an exception. Most South Africans have these privileges. However, we take them for granted, just like we take freedom for granted.

So let’s apply Ubuntu to freedom.

I am free because we are free.

WE HAVE THE SAME STRUGGLES Both South Africa and Mississippi have to look forward without denying the past.

By Bracey Harris I cannot recall the first time I learned what the word freedom meant. If I had to guess, it was somewhere between the Sunday School lessons of Moses leading the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt and the patriotic pageants put on at my elementary school. And then there’s a vague memory of a daycare lesson on America involving macaroni and Cracker Jacks. However, I have learned there is a big difference in knowing what freedom is and understanding it.

The definition of freedom changes depending on whom you ask. To a reckless youth, freedom is embodied in the phrase YOLO (you only live once). To a veteran of a war, freedom has a different meaning.

In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed The Emancipation Proclamation,

which freed American slaves of the Confederacy. After the Civil War, this would finally come to fruition. However, chains still exist — perhaps nowhere more than in the state of Mississippi.

Second to secede from the Union, the Magnolia State has a special burden to carry for its role in the Confederacy.

It has been said by the great American novelist William Faulkner that, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Maybe he had Mississippi in mind when he wrote this. If not, he most certainly did when he penned, “In order to understand the world, one must first understand a place like Mississippi.” Our state is a paradox filled with symbols of the past with a desire to move forward.

It remains a struggle to separate heritage from hate. As supporters for the stars and bars etched on the state flag will argue, it’s pride not prejudice. However, the image of the Confederate flag, waved at pro-segregation rallies and toted by the Ku Klux Klan, lingers. Private schools set up in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and the inevitability of desegregation are still well attended.

The public schools surrounding them are mostly filled with minorities.

Today the biggest obstacle to equality is education. Mississippi’s public schools are ranked among the worst in the nation.

The Jackson School District faces the loss of accreditation, while the Department of Justice’s investigations into Mississippi school districts operating as prison pipelines brings to mind those unjustly thrown onto chain gangs. When children of all races, classes and religions are able to achieve a fair education, then all will truly be free.

South Africa is a nation still grappling with the concept of freedom as well.

Although apartheid has ended, its ghosts still haunt the nation and threaten to hinder its progress. Townships created during apartheid still exist. And the question of how to improve South Africa’s education system often is pushed to the back burner. Workers in platinum mines still struggle for fair pay, and police reaction to strikers has drawn comparisons to Soweto.

However, hope exists. If one goes to public universities, one will see they are fairly integrated not only with white South Africans and black South Africans, but with students from other African nations as well.

The current generation seems eager to move forward. There is independence and a desire for more transparency in political leaders.

Although separated by the Atlantic Ocean, Mississippi and South Africa often fight the same struggles. How to look forward to the future without denying the past poses a challenge.

However, the battle can be won.

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Freedom Is Living Unconventionally It is encouraging others to be free, open and transparent.

By Divinia Pillay

A

perfect job, perfect house, perfect car, perfect spouse, perfect children ... For many these are the epitome of freedom.

For a few others, however, freedom is living life unconventionally.

Gertrude Fester relishes such freedom. She was imprisoned for two years, convicted of treason in what is known as the Yengeni Trial.

She lived for two years in a cell in which sunlight only reached the top right hand corner of the wall for only five minutes each day.

She understands and relishes what freedom means.

Born in 1952, Fester is one of the Yengeni 14 who were arrested in 1988. While in solitary confinement for five months, she composed in her mind a onewoman play titled “The Spirit Cannot Be Caged.”

In a documentary titled “Freedom is a Personal Journey,” Fester described how freedom is something that one creates for one’s self. Because her own mind was free of discrimination and prejudice, and because this is what she was fighting, she was free in prison because her mind was free.

She was in prison for opposing discrimination and oppression during the era of apartheid in South Africa, but she believes that she was and always will be freer than those who have never spent a day behind bars.

While watching “Freedom is a Personal Journey,” produced by Akhieda Mohammed, I reflected on what freedom means to me, and I realised that my pursuit of personal freedom and ultimate happiness needed to be redefined.

During this period of redefining, I was privileged to be with a group of students traveling through three post-conflict areas: South Africa, the state of Mississippi in the United States of America and Northern Ireland.

A constitution has legalized freedom in each of these nations, but personal freedom is a personal journey for each resident.

Clearly, personal freedom does not have a time limit, and it does not happen in a structured format. It allows one’s mind to open, encouraging others to pursue their own freedom. It is a journey that allows you to learn about who you are, who you want to be and who you should be.

As Gertrude Fester has demonstrated, freedom is unconventional.

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We No Longer Live Under Overt Oppression Knowledge is the key to freedom that will bind our hearts and enable us to solve problems that face our people.

By Rahmat Luvuyo Nomvete On a fateful day in September, more than 35 years ago, Steve Biko died in police custody.

Although he passed away at the age of 30, he helped to revolutionize South Africa.

Biko’s work, in a word, centered on the notion of liberation.

Freedom.

“We want to attain the envisioned self, which is a free self,” he wrote.

In South Africa today, we no longer live in a condition of overt oppression. Nonetheless, is it possible that pernicious, invisible forces of oppression act on our lives? What are they? When will we be free?

These are some of the questions I posed to friends.

Each person answered, “yes,” to the possibility of the existence of invisible oppression today. I expected this response.

The oppression of poverty. Crime. Disease. Ignorance.

Hatred. All of these are around us in abundance.

Karabo from Mafikeng, a student at Wits University, said my question was “arbitrary.”

“You can never be sure of the time of freedom — if it will ever happen — unless you are in everybody’s head,” he said.

Karabo took a pen out of his cupboard and drew a rough map of South Africa. His drawing closely resembled a heart.

“Anyhow, the underlying issue is: When will South Africa be united, be a country? Only then, I believe, can we be asked about the possibility of true freedom.”

“When the people believe that God is one, mankind is one, and that the world is but one country, then we will be oppression free,” Sampson Agyemang, a Ghanian living in Port Elizabeth, told me.

Jani, a drama student who lives in George, had similar thoughts.

“It’s when we start respecting and loving each other, no matter the other person’s religion or race or social status!” she said.

Shohreh, a Persian lady who works as a psychologist in Johannesburg, said freedom is, “When we can have access to any kind of knowledge we seek.”

The cause of any oppression, she said, is ignorance. As long as people are left in ignorance, we never will be free and happy. For Shohreh, this is the significance of education.

Biko had touched on something similar.

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” he wrote.

Our freedom, therefore, seems to lie in efforts we make to sharpen our minds through education.

True freedom, I believe, depends on inner qualities such as respect and love. It calls for abandonment of all forms of prejudice. Indeed, we have to be united as a nation in order to seek freedom. Freedom requires that we gain diverse types of knowledge.

If ignorance is the greatest form of oppression, knowledge is the key to true freedom. It is this freedom that will bind our hearts and enable us to solve problems that face our people.

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To Be Free Is To Experience Dangers The civil rights movement was the ultimate test of freedom.

By Jon Haywood I flung through the air and landed in a closet.

I had used my mother’s bright orange scissors to cut through the electrical cord of a window fan. I felt a jolt of electricity and landed with a hard thump that frightened my mother.

Fortunately, I walked away unscathed, but, unfortunately, I was not afraid.

I wanted to know how that window fan got its power.

So I tested it.

That’s the type of kid I was — always testing my luck.

Despite many harebrained childhood stunts, I survived, and I think a lot of it was because of luck.

I think freedom is something like luck because you really do not know you have it, unless you test it.

I do not think anyone can truly understand freedom if they always have been able to avoid the danger that essentially comes along with freedom.

Fortunately, I always have been able to evade any real harm or injury in terms of the freedoms I enjoy.

As a black man born in the last decade of the 20th century, I never had to march or protest anything. My freedom always was right there, ready for me to grab.

As a result, I struggle with the concept of freedom. It’s murky and muddled like the waters of the Mississippi River.

For many modern-day African Americans, the word “freedom” conjures images of the fight for freedom during the American civil rights movement.

That movement was the ultimate test of freedom for so many of my elders and the white Americans who helped them.

Even thinking of the civil rights

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movement troubles me, because it’s not of my generation, it was not my struggle or even my father’s.

I’m envious of the young South Africans I have met who have an amazing understanding of what their freedom means. In fact, they usually can provide details about those moments when racial apartheid fell.

I cannot tell you about realizing that I was free or that I had rights, because I’ve never gone without them.

In the coming years, that gray area of freedom and struggle and triumph for black Americans of my generation will be a major topic of conversation.

What are we fighting against?

Educational inequalities? Workforce inequalities? Health care inequalities?

Maybe, but none of those things are as heated as the struggle for freedom that culminated in the 1960s.

My struggle will never be anything compared to what my grandfather chose to fight for. He served the U.S. in the Korean War at a time when the U.S. and its Armed Forces were not places for black people.

I spent countless weekday afternoons and weekends at my grandparents’ home, and Grandfather never mentioned his military service.

However, when doing some research for a genealogy project in a history class a few months ago, I learned that my grandfather was injured during that war.

I can remember hearing the sounds of the rifles firing during the three-volley salute at his funeral. That is the closest I have come to understanding that freedom is the ability to live life the way you choose.

Grandfather lived life the way he wanted. He served his country, got married, worked hard and paid for a home. He and Grandmother had eight children

who came home safely every day.

That is the life he wanted.

That sounds simple, but that kind of life was not always easy to achieve for black folk living in the American South.

Grandfather knew the price of freedom, and he could appreciate it.

In contrast, I truly do not know what freedom is, but I believe it provides opportunity.

I know, without a doubt, that my opportunities have come as a result of my grandfather’s fight for freedom.

In my 22 years, I have done more and taken advantage of more opportunities than my grandparents and even my parents.

I was graduated second in my high school class, landed in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College of the flagship university of the state of Mississippi and worked my way through the ranks of the college newspaper.

None of that would have been possible without the hard work and sacrifice of my grandfather, but I still struggle with what I have been able to accomplish.

I grew up where cotton was king, and the old southern gentry called the place home.

Today the Delta is one of poorest regions in the United States. A study from the Maynard Media Center for Structural Inequity found that while black men represent 7.9 percent of 18-to-24-yearolds in America, they only represent 2.8 percent of undergraduates at the nation’s public flagship universities.

When I apply such numbers to my own life, I wonder if I made better use of my freedom than my peers did. I wonder if I have ridden the wave of Grandfather’s successes?

The answer is yes.

When I look back, I am amazed and saddened at how much I have outpaced my high school classmates. Most of them went to community colleges for three years to finish two-year degree programs.

Nelson Mandela once said, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

I did not cast off any chains, but I am comforted by the thought that my grandfather not only was free of chains, he respected and enhanced the freedom of others.

The life I live is what Grandfather imagined for his children and grandchildren.

And that is freedom.

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The Corners of a City Freedom is wandering through Port Elizabeth unencumbered by the burdens of the day, the sounds of the city a distant orchestra.

Photo by Chris Allen

Beautiful old buildings in Central are used for many different kinds of businesses, second-hand bookshops being one of them.

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By Kate du Toit There are books everywhere.

He looks British. Mostly bald, red chubby face, veins protruding, broken capillaries around the eyes and nose, a puffy bag under each eye. Tall-ish. Overweight. In his late 50s. A half grin and slightly too much interest but for the weary watchful eye of his wife in the background. She isn’t quite as friendly. Took Jane a few visits to realize why. She still assumed all motives pure.

Innocent. It never even occurred to her.

Old books. Words. How beautiful.

She wanders slowly through, eventually coming to a creaky old staircase at the back that leads to an attic. More books. More words. Dust covering every open space like a ground moss growing daily. Adding to the nostalgia. She could spend forever here.

She is in a little bookshop in the centre of her home city, Port Elizabeth. It is an old original building her ancestors would have commissioned not long after they first set foot on this soil. Taking over, one beautiful piece of architecture at a time.

Trying to bring home to this foreign, harsh land.

As she comes out the door, the little bell tinkles to let them know, and the sun glares directly at her, leaning forward to remind her of where she is. But she doesn’t care. This is her freedom, wandering through her city. Finding little curves and corners no one else seems to know about.

It is quite a day. Warm. Slight breeze. Comfortable. Today Jane is in jeans, sneakers, a little summer top.

She has no bag, just some money in her pocket. Long blonde hair loosely tied in a high ponytail. No cellphone.

Just a desire for some adventure.

She has been told to be careful in the city. But this is her city. If she cannot explore in her own city, she has no true freedom. Of course, she has never experienced anything bad. So her innocence, bold spirit and curiosity drive her.

She has no true sense of what “‘bad’ ”means.

She strolls along the road and around a corner onto a street filled with cafés and bars.

“Every morning I get here I have to pick up half a dozen bottles from outside the door before I can even get to it. Last Saturday when I arrived there was vomit.”

Anthea’s long veiny legs are crossed, protruding out from under the side of

Books in a second-hand bookshop in Central.

Photo by Chris Allen

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the table. She is leaning against the wall, looking out at her tiny coffee shop. Right elbow on the table, coffee cup just to the left, cigarette held high between her long wrinkly fingers, smoke rising to nowhere.

Jane is at a table just a bit further into the smoky void, newspaper open in front of her, unread. It was so dark when she walked in she couldn’t see for the first 20 seconds. The first thing she did see was a very large African Grey sitting on top of his cage next to the public telephone. There is no one else there except the waitress, who wonders over lithely with a cup of coffee and a scrappy-looking notepad.

“Eating?”

“Yes, thanks, I’ll have a curry chicken mayo tramazzeni.”

She didn’t actually order coffee. She drinks it anyway.

“It’s disgusting. I know.”

He has a dog at his feet. Large Husky, striking blue eyes, looking sleepy with his chin on his paws. Every time someone walks in his ears perk up, eyes widen.

Doesn’t bother to actually lift his head off his paws. His owner has a very healthy bush of grey hair, a beard to match and a face that looks like it has seen too many cigarettes come and go.

“I know I don’t own the pavement, but this is my shop. Would they vomit outside their own front door?

Actually, don’t answer that.”

Takes a drag, slowly, precisely pushes the smoke back out again.

“And don’t ever try to drive down this street at night. They might as well just get rid of all the buildings and make it a public drinking park. I don’t know why any of these places pay rent.

Everyone just stands on the street.”

Soon, a young couple wander in, sit opposite Jane at a table next to the wall.

Both light up, half leaning against the wall. She is wearing a ‘50s style floral dress that goes in at the waist and falls just above her knees, flat black schoolgirl sneakers and an open button-up cardigan.

He has wild curly hair fighting against a black trilby hat. Skinnies, button-up shirt and veldskoen-type shoes confirm that they are probably part of the art crew now living for R1 a month in one of Denton’s recently done up houses on Military Road. An Irish property mogul. Known for Photo by Chris Allen

Steps leading up towards a beautiful old church in downtown Port Elizabeth.

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deliberately leaving the numerous buildings he owns to degenerate. Now, he’s trying to make living in the city cool again. A very unpopular man in Port Elizabeth.

“Did you get hold of The Cottonfields?”

“Yes, they’re stoked.”

“Good. What other bands have we confirmed?”

“Jack Rabbit Slims. Still working on the others.”

“Awesome. It’s gonna be sick. A gig at the Donkin. What an insane idea.”

Jane stands and walks toward the counter at the entrance. She will ask the guys about the gig. She smiles. As usual, she’s the last to know. But she doesn’t mind. She loves watching them play.

She steps back out into glaring sun and fresh air.

She begins walking again.

She eventually finds herself next to a seemingly endless Anglican Church. Wrought iron fencing all around. Gate locked. She can hear the organ being played inside.

Is there a lone man sitting there, playing hymns of old? Too afraid to leave the gate open, as a church should? Little stone steps stretch out in front of her. The path forward clearly laid out. She hears the chiming of the city clock and turns to look, the city square below her. The back of Queen Victoria’s head towering above every passer-by seems less ominous from here. What a strict lady she must have been.

Did she ever love anyone? Jane wonders.

She can see where the steps are leading, to a street above. But before she gets there, she finds a little alleyway to the right she simply can’t resist. She strolls along and soon comes to the end. Turning around, she notices small steps going down. Stepping lightly, silently, she follows them and emerges into an astonishing Lewis Carroll style garden. In the middle of the city.

Completely overgrown, green, luscious.

It doesn’t seem to belong to a house.

It just is.

Jane sits for a while. The sounds of the city a distant orchestra. It is so close. And yet the trees and bush of the garden seem to wrap around the visitor.

A protection.

A brief respite.

She realizes she loves it all.

The screeching of the hadedas cheekily telling the city it’s time to wake up.

The yelling of the gatchi as he hangs out the taxi window, “Town. Town.

Town.” So fast you can barely hear

what he’s saying, but you know.

The mamas sitting, legs out flat in front of them, on the patch of grass on the side of the street they have claimed as their own outside the house they will never live in, will always work in.

Their loud, genuine, infectious laughs.

A coffee shop on popular Parliament Street.

The silence of the waves crashing, then rolling in to say hello before sheepishly pulling back. Teasing.

The vastness of the sun’s deep orange hands stretching out as an invitation for all to see, a declaration, “Come, let us say goodbye to the day.”

Photo by Chris Allen

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Karoo INFINITY DWELLS IN THE

Freedom hangs in the crisp air and runs to the horizon.

In Nieu Bethesda, Helen Martins’ house attracts those who wish to learn how she gained personal freedom.

By Lisa Wiedeman

WANA

nnesburg

TH CA

Port Elizabeth

AN I N D IA N OCE

ethesda

It’s best to leave town at dark and wait for the sky to BOTSWANA grow green, yellow, orange, while you Johannesburg drive. The prickly SOUTH AFRICA plants appear first as shadows, and are Port Elizabeth Cape slowly painted by Town N daybreak to reveal A I IND AN dark greens and OCE earthy browns. On Karoo a perfect autumn morning, the grass glistens modestly in the rising sun, and seems to whisper, “good morning, Karoo,” to the seamless sky that stretches beyond the Sneeuberg.

The Karoo is a beautiful place. Infinity resides here, and greets you at every bend in the road. One feels small, but it is not the kind of small that makes you sad. Instead, lightness and forgetfulness overcome you and make you feel that all is well. The mountains bulge and curve like waves waiting to break. One can almost hear their yawns in the morning — waking the velddiere who quietly go about the business of survival.

Freedom hangs in the crisp air. So many fields and fields and fields that run to the horizon and joyously greet the azure.

NAMIBIA

ZIMBABWE

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ZIMBABWE

Reflections on Freedom 2013

But all is not as it seems. Freedom does not necessarily permeate the boundaries of towns, or the minds of people.

Perhaps one village that knows this too well is Nieu Bethesda — a tiny place that one reaches only when the road runs out.

Now home to artists and people keeping small coffee shops, mainly for the tourists, the village makes a living from its sad past.

Helen Martins was born in Nieu Bethesda in 1897 and lived there most of her life.

After the deaths of her parents in the early 1940s, “Miss Helen” also struggled to cope with being abandoned by her husband. She was viewed as an outsider in the highly conservative, apartheid-informed, village, and she became increasingly reclusive.

Her association with nie-Blankes and her

unconventional art made conservatives suspicious. Finding little love in the outside community, Miss Helen turned inward and began to transform her house and garden.

“Welcome, please come in. Everything is just as I left it.” One enters the Owl House, and her spirit guides one through it. “That’s my tub, these are my owls … my candles. I’m so happy you came.”

With the help of her friend, Koos Malgas, Miss Helen created more than 300 cement-and-glass statues that present various scenes depicting the Nativity, the philosophies of Omar Khayyam, and owls of varying sizes and positions.

Everything points east. The Camel Yard expresses a yearning for love, and represents her search for freedom from the hurtful Nieu Bethesda community.

“Sometimes I light the candles, and everything sparkles.”

Helen Martins was an artist, deemed South Africa’s foremost “Outsider Artist.”

Her house in Nieu Bethesda attracts a steady flow of tourists throughout the year. She was a woman, saturated with irony — treated with contempt when all she sought was love, people falling in love with her only after her death.

The Karoo gives one a feeling of smallness, but if one is not careful, little things will make you wish you had paid more attention.

The Karoo catches visitors by surprise and offers opportunities to explore and be free.

And oh, how they fall in love! The glassspeckled statues dance in the sunlight, exaggerated eyes drink you in, arms call you and you become enamored with the magnificent soul behind the tragic figure.

“I crush the glass and keep the pieces in jars. My pantry has more glass in it than food. Do you like the colours? They’re everywhere …”

The walls in her modest house twinkle.

Miss Helen loved light and plastered crushed glass to the walls. Owl-shaped candle-holders litter her home.

She is an inspiration to those who walk the line between mainstream and periphery.

The freedom she created for herself arises from personal consideration and a struggle to become the sculptor of one’s own life.

It seems the more she filled her home with her art, the more pressure she applied to

the cage that had been placed over her.

“They didn’t want me here. The village was their space, and I wasn’t welcome, so I made my own. My art became my life, my life became my art.”

Bulging, creaking at the seams, her suicide shattered the cage. A concoction of crushed glass and caustic soda was a final irony.

She gave New Bethesda her art, her life, an industry, but I doubt the little boys who stand with the horses, waiting for the tourists, know her story.

It is among the great stories of our time — more so because the lessons we take from her struggle can be applied to everybody.

In the face of loneliness, suspicion and tragedy, Miss Helen crafted a fairyland for herself, and created her own brand of freedom.

What we see with Miss Helen is the conscious re-working of one’s life and the process of personal transformation. Some authors, such as Michel Foucault, have promoted the use of writing to aid this process of self-transformation, and we can see Miss Helen using her art for the same end. After all, very little difference exists between the artistic processes of writing and sculpting. Both begin with a daunting blankness and end in life.

Paying attention to one’s life — as though it were an artwork — is a process that dates back to the Ancient Greeks who internalized techne tou biou. The craft of life. It is in this crafting of one’s life that one should find freedom. Often, people are misled into believing that politics, bureaucracy and grand-narratives will deliver them to freedom; however, these things often trap a person within a web of rhetoric.

It is possible that the process of turning inward, and finding a personal freedom — rather than focusing on liberation rhetoric — is a more valuable way of achieving a degree of happiness.

As one leaves Miss Helen’s house, the strange figures peek over the fence to see one off. The owls stare sadly, and other characters stretch out their arms, calling one back.

“It’s frightening out there, don’t go!” they seem to say. “Come back inside. We’ll keep you company, and make you happy.”

However, everything is still in the beautiful Karoo mornings. The grass glistens in the rising sun, and the seemless sky stretches beyond the Sneeuberg.

It seems that all is well.

Freedom is in the air, a sense of infinity that brings lightness and joy.

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Freedom Is Using Media To Describe South Africa Accurately Media provide the marker of how free and equal a nation is, and our media have fallen short.

By Okhule Dotwana

I

grew up in a tranquil, affluent suburb with lots of trees, lots of space and lots of anything I wanted.

I have a mother. I have a father. They are married. They are university graduates from Fort Hare. One has an LLM (Master of Laws) and the other a BA Honours.

My parents, four siblings, nephew and I live in the same house. It is a beautiful house, with a sparkling swimming pool that my 6-year-old nephew loves. He had a dog called Puppy, but someone stole it. Three siblings and I are university graduates, and one is a university graduate-in-the-making.

My reality could be something out of a Kathy and Mark book. In fact, including the stolen dog, it’s exactly like the Kathy and Mark books. However, in Kathy and Mark books it is not black people who are living this reality.

When I was in grade one. I had a kind teacher who loved to hug us and pinch our cheeks. At a chosen time every week, she would stand in front of the class with her lovely Johnson’s Baby Powder smell and her ample gold bracelets tinkling and announce that it’s time to practice reading and writing, and we would delve into the world of Kathy and Mark. They were a white American brother and sister who lived a privileged life. Then, after reading about their adventures, we

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would write it out in our workbooks.

This was 1996, only two years after South Africa’s first democratic elections.

So I understand why a class of black children were still inundated with images of affluent white people, and black people who only come into the picture when white people needed to have their houses cleaned. We were still just coming into our democracy; new books had not been written and printed. More pressing issues were on the new government’s agenda.

Sixteen years later, I am a university student. It makes me happy … actually, not happy … Let’s say satisfied. Happy suggests that the work is complete, while satisfied acknowledges that some strides have been made, but we have a long way to go. I am satisfied that some books show images of black people.

Back then, common images of black people included the maid who cleans the house and looks after the children, the gardener who is quite old, but the white children call him by his first name anyway, and the handyman with “shifty eyes,” a “dishonest demeanour” and “lightning quick fingers” who will steal if no one is watching over him. We endured all manner of ignorant and racist representations.

Today, I am satisfied. I would be happy if present-day media, would reflect a broad spectrum of the realities of all black people in South Africa.

The major visual medium in South Africa is television. More people watch TV than read books — sometimes because of access and other times because of preference. Albeit much more subtle, historical representations are still evident in programming on South African television.

It is almost as though the SABC channels (for which viewers do not need to pay extra) have made it a mission to reject as many positive (and realistic) representations of black South Africans as they possibly can.

I have lost count of the number of times I have switched off SABC 1 (which ironically, is aimed at black people) because of the

disheartening and disgusting way black people are represented. This particular channel prides itself on being the voice of black youth in South Africa. Most of the programming focuses on black people who live in townships (or “Kasi” as they are affectionately called by SABC 1).

In programs such as Zone 14, Generations and Tshisa (all SABC 1), it is common to find that black South Africans now have no future and are not interested in intellectual pursuits such as reading or going to school.

They have been raised by a single mother. A typical South African does not know who his or her father is or have a good relationship with him. It is someone whose family members are dying every day thanks to HIV. It is someone whose mother sells alcohol to make a living (affectionately known as a shebeen queen) and who lives in a matchbox-size house with many other people. It is a female who sleeps around and whose highest aspiration is to marry a sugar daddy. It is a man who likes getting drunk, getting into fights in which someone gets killed.

Eighteen years into our freedom as black South Africans, these are the prevailing images about us.

Clearly, some of these images are a reality for many black South Africans. Many are living in matchbox-size houses with many family members. Many are dying as a result of AIDS. Many are being raised by single mothers. And some among us get into drunken fights or marry men for their money.

My concern with South African media is that they suggest black people should be PROUD of such a life.

This is evident in the way

unsavoury practices have been given petnames to make them sound acceptable and enjoyable. In the black community, both rich and poor frown on the sale of alcohol. Yet media have given it a term of endearment, “shebeen queen.” Living in the township is not an ideal for many black people; and yet the media have made it sound nice by calling it “Kasi.”

In my first year of media studies, we were introduced to media effects theories.

I wonder when I see these programmes, what media effects are taking root among viewers and to what end?

As a black person who grew up in the suburbs and who has absolutely no identification with “Kasi” lifestyle, I was referred

to as a “coconut.” This is a derogatory term for a black person who “acts like” a white person. In my belief, this word and the mindset that accompanies it is indicative of the effects that media representations could possibly be having on many South Africans, black and white.

This “acting white” is always attributed to actions that are developmental for the person doing them.

For example, in my

high school years, I would choose to go to the library and read during second break.

I was accused of “acting white” because I didn’t drink alcohol, never went to parties and had taken a vow to abstain from sex until I am married. I liked going to church, and I listened to my parents’ instructions.

I was told I “think I’m better” (stuck-up).

My cousin, who was in matric at the time, was studying for her final exams when friends (who also were in matric) came over and asked her to hang out. She said she had to study. They told her she’s a “model c” (a snob), left in a huff and never spoke to her again. These are the attitudes held by black people of black people who do not match and, indeed, challenge and subvert, the images of black people in South African media.

Resistance to positive representations of black South Africans also is becoming evident in the media aimed at white people.

South African media aimed mostly at white people recently have been saturated with attacks on affluent young black people.

Black South Africans such as businessman Kenny Kunene and politician Julius Malema have been crucified for what the media call “excessive and wasteful spending.”

This (somewhat patronising) disapproval occurs when they are seen wearing high-end brands like Louis Vuitton, throw expensive parties, buy private jets or add to their collection of luxury cars. Interestingly, this same disapproval is not attributed to white people when they engage in the exact same “excessive and wasteful spending.”

I believe media provide a marker of how free and equal a nation is. Unfortunately, the South African media have fallen short of equal and accurate representations of black people. Until the day when black South Africans can watch TV or read the paper without being insulted and/ or patronised and until white South Africans can do the same while rejecting those representations because they are a deterrent to our democracy, we do not deserve to call our society free.

Toni Morrison said, “… just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else.

If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”

There is no denying the power of media in influencing perceptions and promulgating stereotypes. Freedom is using media to describe South Africa accurately for the South African mindset.

Photo by Chris Allen

2013 Reflections on Freedom

37

Oxford, Mississippi

A

Universal Theme

By Bracey Harris

I

BINDS US

am becoming more aware that commonality is a universal theme that has the power to bind us.

Ironically, it took traveling to South Africa to understand Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA.” Her song deals with a small-town girl traveling to Hollywood and the nervousness she feels. There is a line in which Cyrus references her taxi driver playing a Jay-Z song. Its immediate effect is to overcome her homesickness. In a way, that is how I felt when I hear Adele crooning from the speakers in our cab.

Rain greets us as we head down the street to eat and buy essentials. Although I am not hungry, I am cold. It is winter in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and we have no heat where we are staying. The windy mist does not help, but I keep my complaints to myself. Many in this municipality and nation have less.

There are a number of things I could blame for my lack of appetite. At the head of the list is the 15-hour plane ride across the Atlantic.

Flying never has bothered me, and I had felt this flight was going well. There is no discomfort in my ears as we adjust altitudes, and I relax.

After watching “The Hangover II” and “The Fighter,” I decide to go to sleep, but turbulence wakes me several times. When the flight attendant comes around with breakfast, I gratefully take the water she offers. My lips are parched, and my mouth is dry. She hands me a cup, and I return her smile. The cup has no ice, and I reluctantly drink the lukewarm water and begin to drift off to sleep.

A few minutes later, I wake up. My stomach does, too.

I am in row 55, seat B, the middle seat, in economy class, what some regular travelers call, “the village.”

There is no nausea or warning. The bile already is in my throat, and the seat pocket has no paper bags. If I get up, I will vomit on the man lucky enough to have the aisle seat.

I stay in my seat and heave at least three times.

Similarities I find between Oxford and Port Elizabeth have universal implications

Okhule Dotwana of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Bracey Harris of the University of Mississippi in conversation during break from class session at NMMU.

It is not a pretty picture. All I can do is pathetically groan, “Oh God.” At home, someone would have said, “Bless your heart,” but those sitting next to me do not react.

I frantically push the flight attendant button, and a middleaged blonde flight attendant comes to my assistance.

She leads me to the lavatory. The front of my shirt is drenched. My pants are splattered. I desperately ask for a t-shirt because I do not have a change of clothes.

Nothing is available.

After seeing me cry, an older African American flight attendant with a slight accent moves me to an aisle seat on the last row.

I am silent when we arrive in Johannesburg and transfer for a flight to Port Elizabeth. Gentlemen to my left and right enliven the relatively short flight.

When we finally arrive at our accommodations, I head to the bathroom, but paper and towels have not been provided, and I resort to the pocket tissue I always carry with me.

Thankfully, there are linens.

After making my bed, I get under the covers and cry for at least 30 minutes.

I finally manage to compose myself enough to borrow another student’s Ethernet cord, get on Skype with my mother and we talk for an hour.

The next morning, I still am not hungry.

Neil, our chauffeur for the weekend, arrives the next morning. His warm smile and good driving skills ease my worries at the van’s not having seat belts.

In South Africa they drive on the left side of the rode.

The speed limit is measured in kilometers, not miles, but the more we traveled the more comfortable I became.

I smile for the first time since our arrival when we pass a KFC and a McDonald’s, and my spirits lift at the Green Acres mall — not because of the thought of shopping, but because everything seems familiar.

I see mothers with their children and young couples.

When we arrive back at our home (because that’s the way to think of it now), we put away our groceries, and I start with the toilet paper.

I fix a ham sandwich with mustard and sit down to flip through Cosmopolitan South Africa. Familiarity brings comfort.

Absent my mother’s presence, nothing could calm my nerves better.

I spent my first 12 years of school nurtured and guided by wonderful teachers.

Their efforts helped me through my high school senior year. Two weeks before school started that year, my father unexpectedly passed away, and the warmth and care of my teachers helped me get my diploma.

Thus, the thought of distant, cold professors was unbearable. However, when I arrived on the Ole Miss campus, I found teachers who cared, and my residence hall fellow became my mom away from home.

In the days that follow the trip to the mall, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University becomes my new university home. Scurrying monkeys are a more exotic substitute for Grove squirrels, and milling students on their way to class make me feel like I am at Ole Miss.

When we visit a township, a beat up car with rims rolls by blasting 6’7 by Lil Wayne.

There is no Square in Port Elizabeth, but Stanley Street has restaurants and bars where college students hang out.

The bars have a relaxed atmosphere, and antics of falling off a stool and karaoke are similar. There also is a guy who cannot take the hint and is too close for comfort.

While we are in South Africa, the nation is riveted on Chad de Clos, a young swimmer who won a gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly in the Olympics in London. Their cheering for de Clos mirrors my home country’s feelings for Michael Phelps, who beats de Clos in the 100-meter butterfly.

A trip to Cape Town reminds me of the long commutes my fellow Rebels are willing to make to experience the party atmosphere of New Orleans. We take the same precautions that one might take when visiting The Big Easy: Small purse, or better yet, no purse.

No accepting drinks from strangers, especially the charming ones.

We wait for a friend at the hostel, but he takes too long, and we leave. At the first bar, we have intense discussions over where to go next or whether to stay. There are ill-fated suggestions of songs for the DJ to play.

Our party splits. One young man stays behind at a club with an old friend, and another goes missing — only to be found safe back at the hostel.

I decide to dip out early. In this town that means 2 a.m.

Two fellow students stay out long enough to watch the sun rise.

The next morning we gather, not at IHOP or Big Bad Breakfast as we would at Ole Miss, but in the lobby of our hostel.

But just like back home, we swap stories of the previous night’s adventures.

How similar are the patterns of our lives, whether in South Africa or Mississippi.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I Like What Africa Has To Say Here on the Eastern Cape

40

Reflections on Freedom 2013

I regularly return to the old fort on Victoria Drive where the continent speaks with clarity.

By Andrew Howarth I like to drive.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s on a rented scooter in the heat of a New Delhi summer or behind the wheel of a jeep tackling the vast expanse of the Outback.

I like going places.

I like the knowing home like the back of my hand — the veined workings of a city and how it flows. Wired like a homing pigeon, I don’t take too much thought to get where I want to be.

I like the rustic houses, the Old Dutch design threatening contemporary uniformity and the Victorian houses defiantly ornate.

I like the jacaranda, its purple petals littering the pavement and the stately oak and maple that have seen a hundred or more years. I like the importance of art.

The old suburbs hold a history, tragic and beautiful. The influences of Europe weigh heavily on Mount Croix and Richmond Hill.

Neglect is often a product of ambition, and I like that we have learned the value of history, the era forgotten in time, when things were built to be beautiful. I like that they chose to preserve these districts.

At the terminus, taxis seem to be an extension of each owner’s self, often emblazoned with stickers of inspiration or a mobile billboard or battered and patched with dents and ingenious quick fixes.

My favorite place is the old fort on Victoria drive where the sun gains artistic licence over the earth at the beginning and end of each day. Smearing light and distorting the colours to a hue that does not seem possible, the light in the sky is Africa’s own cheeky version of an Aurora Borealis. Greens become gold or silver or red, and white is free to pick its colour at random. The field is alight with the warmth at dawn or the ending of a day.

After class, I drive home and soak in the sights and scents and sounds of this bustling metropolis.

Workers are eager to be head home: family, lovers and friends are waiting.

Some return to houses. Others to tin and zinc staccato structures from a sordid past that Photo by Chris Allen Original colonial houses still make up the central area of the city. scab the land outside the city.

At the robots Tires crunch on the gravel, and a flock in between light changes, shiny silver of guinea fowl pick at grubs along the side or a handful of copper can liberate a of the road.

They have a distinctive call dancing man of his paralysis. Legless men and blue heads that give them a distinctly miraculously regrow limbs or a bottle of prehistoric demeanour – a reminder of the something, Hawkers will sell anything; ageless quality of life on the Eastern Cape.. sunglasses, fruit, dustbin bags, or Clothes go crisp on the roof racks toothbrushes, cell phone chargers— prices of the car in the salt air as I wrestle drop when you speak their language. with a wetsuit and the few shameful Barneys is on my left, where the moments of apathetic nudity. karaoke is never a solo and everyone I love that first wave, and the next. knows each other. The beer is cheap, The water so cold it freezes the euphoria but a jug is cheaper. Many a day is on your face; a building wave, the initial wasted in the folly of this tavern. paddle, the fluid mount, the drop, the The beach front is always busy. Dogs ride and the grit of wax on the pads gallop off their leads, and children frollick of feet while you control direction. in the waves, their parents minding younger A fort marks this hill where invaders once siblings who toddle around wielding watched for invasion. Purposeless now, it tiny spades and buckets. Sunbathers stands watch over the sea, a guardian of the lie away from the water, absorbing the fynbos and wildflowers that covet its walls. sun as if they were plants. They are in This is my sanctuary, a little piece one of two shades; bronze or red. of history at the top of a hill.

Runners of all sizes dodge pram pushers The soft white sand slides a bit with and cyclists along the promenade, elderly each step, but not enough to deny my couples hold hands and watch teenagers walk up the steep incline. A spurfowl do what they would have never done in takes precautionary refuge in a nearby their day. Opportunists take full advantage, thicket, alarmed by a rare, lone stranger. a brutal turf war between seagulls and This is a stretch of coast line with blue pigeons over the bounty of dropped french and green as far as the eye can see. This fries and ice cream cones is not uncommon. is Port Elizabeth before the modern world.

The university is on my left and, as The restios’ silver feathers sway like scenery changes, Bush, dune, thicket, rolling waves and the bushveld gleams with replace B&B’s and petrol stations. The the remains of the day: The dusk alight aroma of fynbos is pungent and little with the iridescent remnants of the sun’s animals make appearances along the daily comings and goings: Green, red, route. A mongoose scampers across the yellow, orange every night a different sky. road, a long body moving in waves, a In the stress and turmoil of dassie scouts a new rock to perch on my life, I regularly return to this and tortoises lumber over the hot tar. refuge where the continent speaks I arrive at my favourite surf spot, an so clearly through its sunsets. isolated lookout point that harbours a And I like what Africa has to say few carefully parked cars — one billowing here on the Eastern Cape. wisps of something likely illegal.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

41

Ikwezi A Town Lacking in Dreams

The desires the people hold are simple: Better education, basic amenities and healthcare, but many of these are out of reach. Time will tell.

A typical street in Ikwezi.

from Port Elizabeth. Its economy is stagnant, and unemployment is high.

The mayor of Ikwezi does not live ZIMBABWE ZIMBABWE ZIMBABWE ZIMBABWE ZIMBABWE It is midday in Klipplaat, one of the in this small town on the Eastern Cape. four towns that make up the municipality.

Instead, he commutes nearly an hour — BOTSWANA BOTSWANA BOTSWANA BOTSWANA BOTSWANA Goats mill about in search of food. They an indication that those who seek careers come across growing trees that have been and higher education must go elsewhere.

Johannesburg Johannesburg Johannesburg Johannesburg Johannesburg planted inside tires in a futile attempt Inside the mayor’s office a line of women SOUTH SOUTH SOUTH SOUTH SOUTH to keep the animals from reaching their AFRICA AFRICA stand, waiting to fill outAFRICA paperwork. Some AFRICA AFRICA leaves.

A farmer quickly chases them carry babies on their hips in hopes of BradleyPort Levack Port Port Port away.

Green, grassy hills nearby provide Elizabeth Elizabeth gettingElizabeth powdered milk.

Others seek answers Cape Cape Cape Cape Elizabeth N A Town Town Town Town I N grazing for many livestock.

Farming is D N I N families.

DIA on how toI Nprovide for their growing AN AN N N N D I AN CEA I N D IA N I the I N D IA N A O E C one of few occupations available.

A O a town lacking in dreams. The Ikwezi is OCE OCE OCE One group hopes to change desires that the people hold are simple: Ikwezi Cape Town Port Elizabeth Nieu-Bethesda Karoo facing these towns. limitations Better education for their children, The Youth Forum is a simple basic amenities and health care. name.

No clever acronyms or fancy With many of these out of reach, dreams are an afterthought. monikers.

Under direction of Bradley Although the name translates as “morning star” Levack, the forum is named for those in Xhosa, one feels that the warmness of its people is who it is trying to reach. Levack is a artificial. One wonders if their smiles reflect contentment developmental practitioner for Ikwezi. or reluctance to accept an inevitable fate.

Thandeka Mduna, the Ikwezi is a municipality of fewer than 12,000 residents secretary for the forum, speaks fewer than 230 kilometers (a little more than 140 miles) inland Thandeka Mduna

42

Reflections on Freedom 2013

NAMIBIA

NAMIBIA

NAMIBIA

NAMIBIA

NAMIBIA

By Bracey Harris

Bradley Levack talks to a classroom of students at a local school.

with a soft, steady voice of her hopes for the future.

At the age of 25, her life has been rife with disappointments and missed opportunities. Yet, she still has faith that God has a plan for her life.

She is determined to be a nurse, but many obstacles are in her path.

Year after year, she learns the details of application too late to apply for nursing school. However, knowing in advance is not enough. The complications seem endless. The application is online, and her town has no Internet access. The nearest place to make photocopies of requested documents is at a police station more than an hour and a half away. This is not to mention financial difficulty.

As she speaks, the tears in her eyes are just as visible as the determination in her voice.

“I don’t let my circumstances determine my future,” she says. “Even if takes 20 years,” her voice trails off.

She fears that many in her village lack determination.

“It’s not always about money. Sometimes when there’s an opportunity, you grab it with both hands,” Mduna says of the tendency of the town’s youth to be interested only in quick-paying jobs such as brick laying, rather than seeking higher education.

This has presented a problem for the Youth Forum. For many, the hours spent with the Youth Forum are seen as lost wages. Several members have quit in an attempt to gain financial security.

Mduna loves the youth council because it is non-political.

This is quite a feat in South Africa, a place where loyalty to political parties runs deep. Perhaps political loyalty is no more prominently displayed than in the African National Congress.

Its influence is felt throughout Ikwezi. A garbage can in the distance is painted with ANC colors — yellow, black and green stripes. It is a solemn reminder that even if politics does not dictate the forum, politics cannot be escaped.

“People around here are more political than anything,” Mduna says.

This is a hindrance to the Youth Forum.

Johannes, 29, is chairman of the forum and cites its neutrality as a factor in the lack of participation. Many argued that the leader of the forum should be picked on the basis of political allegiance, not ideals.

The Youth Forum intends for every underage young person to be in school.

While Mduna blames the disinterest in higher education Johannes Olifant on discouragement, Johannes

believes the problem is a lack of discipline.

“Not everyone can stand against the bad influences of life,” Mduna says. Ikwezi is a peaceful place, but teenage pregnancies and dropouts are a problem. She shakes her head when recalling the stir that was caused by an 11-year-old’s pregnancy.

Johannes is worried about a dark influence. He says that youth as young as 12 have begun experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Although the violence and crime that often is associated with South Africa does not exist in Ikwezi, gangs are gradually having a presence. He worries that there soon will be trouble.

Charmain, 30, often tells her life story as a cautionary tale. She tries to warn youth of the mistakes she made in the taverns, but most do not listen. As she talks, she fidgets with zippers on both sides of her jacket. Up and down she pulls them as she pauses to collect her thoughts.

Being a rebellious teenager is almost considered a rite of passage in the West. Here, the stakes are higher. A lack of commitment to education is not a barrier to college in the West, but in South Africa it means no admittance. So commitment to education is vital.

Mduna considers it a victory that the town saved two children who were considered troublemakers. The forum fought for them to be reinstated, and the principal reluctantly agreed.

The policies of the schools are a point of tension in Ikwezi.

Required courses often are not offered and students are ill-prepared.

Last year at the Klipplaat Secondary School, no student passed the required exams. However, the forum believes the outcome can be different. They have hopes for a 100 percent pass rate.

Levack deserves credit for the forum. As an activist against apartheid, he has been pained by the condition of many black South Africans.

Several classrooms are lacking teachers as funding has been reduced. Instructors rotate from classroom to classroom while students wait without supervision until the teacher arrives from another classroom.

Levack walks into a classroom of waiting students and compels them to have respect and pride in their school. He urges students to not let those who fought for their freedom to have done so in vain.

The students listen in silence. Occasionally eyes roll, no doubt from hearing a history lesson that they feel has been shared too often. Others look on with interest; some simply just look tired.

He tells them God led his footsteps there and that maybe his speech was for only one person’s ears. This is OK, he says.

As we listen, we become aware that only time will tell whether Levack’s commitment will mean that the young people of Ikwezi do not have to go elsewhere to prosper.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

43

My Dad Was Arrested and Tortured Fighting Apartheid

door close. My mother rushes to open the front door, and I slowly follow.

By the time I get to the hallway, Father is holding Mother and crying.

He looks like someone has roughed him up, and this makes me even more upset and frightened, but I did not understand the severity of the situation.

After a bit he pours himself a drink, sits down and lights a cigarette. As we talk, I learn that he is an advocate.

This was pre-1994 South Africa, and he had been arrested by security police.

They wanted to get information on those opposing the government. They had tried to force my father to talk.

A few years later, my siblings and I were sitting at the breakfast table waiting for Mother to give us breakfast.

It was a Sunday mornig, and Father

By Divinia Pillay was still sleeping. The phone rang, and A kaleidoscope of colour adorns the Mother ran to answer it so Father would prayer room at the back of our home in not awaken. Father’s cousin was on the Malabar. I sit on the floor and look up at line, and she asked to speak to him. the A3 poster-size portraits of each deity He took the call in his study. On the hanging on the wall. Each of the four wall to the left of this statue, a poster of portraits depict four deities, symbolise Chris Hani towered over Father. The poster different aspects of our lives, and the immortalized the President of the South spectrum of colour usually calms me.

African Communist Party in his signature On this particular night, my father had pose in his Umkhonto Wesiswe uniform. not come home from work, and I am worried.

After a few minutes, I walked into the At our home, we always called study just as Father was ending the call. if we were going to be late.

“Chris Hani was killed this In the prayer room, I kneel and beg morning,” he said quietly. whatever greater being out there to let The news shook me to THE core.

Father come home immediately. I go back Later we learned that Mr. Hani had been to the kitchen where Mother and my shot in front of one of his daughters. sister are sitting with a family friend who I realized that it could have been my dad had chosen to stay with us until Father who was gunned down, and I could have comes home or we hear something. been the one who witnessed the shooting.

Father’s silver Chevrolet pulls up in The next Monday, the local newspaper front of our house, and we hear the car published a photo of Mr. Hani with a gunshot wound to the head.

After 1994 I learned that my parents had kept several incidents from me. Father had been in a car accident and had a shoulder wound that Mother had to dress every night until it had healed. The tyres of his car had been shot, causing the accident.

Father and I recently watched Country of My Skull, a film based on a novel by Antjie Krog. In one of the scenes, a journalist is investigating the death of a hero in the A poster of Chris Hani, president of the South African Commufight against apartheid and nist Party, in Divinia Pillay’s home is one of her memories of the finds a torture chamber. apartheid struggle.

Over time I have learned that South Africa can be proud of its diversity in race and religion and grateful for reconciliation.

44

Reflections on Freedom 2013

While we watched, Father described each of the torture tools in the scene.

Similar tools had been used on him.

Exposure to the struggle against apartheid gave me a passion for what this nation can be, and I decided that to ensure a great future, we must embrace multiculturalism in South Africa.

I decided to pursue careers in journalism, and international education.

I believe media have a responsibility to help build our nation. Thus, I began working for the Office for International Education at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University as a marketing assistant and copywriter. Here I gained experience in marketing for International Education and developed an affiliation for International Education as a vehicle for multiculturalism in Higher Education Institutions.

In 2008, I was selected as one of the scholars for the Trent Lott Leadership Program, focusing on race, religion and reconciliation in post-conflict nations.

This was my first trip abroad. I learned that race, religion and reconciliation had different meanings for different people, and I recognized the importance of these different meanings.

The Trent Lott Leadership Program was one of the pivotal events of my life.

It taught me to look at people and their feelings and where they have come from before passing judgments and expectations in terms of my own beliefs. It was at this stage that I embraced opportunities that would assist me in following a career that would enable me to learn more about culture and diversity in a nation that can be proud of these qualities.

In 2009, I was appointed as an Assistant Short Program coordinator for the NMMU Office for International Education. I coordinate and run short-term programs for international students from outside the U.S., including the Trent Lott Leadership Program. In November of 2009, I was appointed as the Study Abroad Coordinator for students and in 2011, I was inducted into the Golden Key International Honours Society for volunteering as an advisor for the chapter on the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University campus.

I continue to be motivated by the challenges Father faced as he and his colleagues battled to bring freedom and equality for all South Africans.

Quality Education Must Be Accessible To Everyone

students, Theo Ketchum, a member of the town’s governing board, says students in the school have “the core support that others did not have. I put my head on the block. They are going to do well.”

Ketchum’s belief is what drives Priscilla. “ (My family) believes that I can do better than what other members of the family have done. And I want to prove to them I can do better and I will do better,” she said.

Nonetheless, Priscilla has had quite a difficult living situation. we were in school, we did not have

By Jon Haywood She lives with her 64-yearaccess to all of this kind of stuff.”

Rugby is a man’s game. old grandmother and 65-year-old Olifant, a soft-spoken member of At least that is the thought around grandfather, three cousins and her the Ikwezi Youth Development Forum, most of the world. But do not let younger brother. Her grandfather suffers completed secondary school in 2002.

Klipplaat Secondary School student from a serious bladder condition.

The community of Klipplaat did not have Priscilla Grootboom hear that.

Both grandparents work jobs in town, Internet access until 2009, many years Every day after school, Priscilla spends but how much longer her grandfather later than developed in South Africa. hours practicing with her rugby club. She will be able to continue worries her.

Now with Internet access and says women’s rugby is not as intense as Priscilla’s mother is a domestic worker added attention from the government, men’s rugby, but she loves it because of the in Port Elizabeth, and her father works Olifant said students simply need to opportunities to advance to various levels. in George. She admits it is challenging work harder to complete school.

That drive and determination has living away from her parents.

Even with attention from community propelled her to compete in the Eastern “There are things you want to talk with and government programs, many learners Cape Conference for rugby — not an easy your parents about that you can’t talk in rural South Africa face a host of feat for a secondary school student. about with your grandparents,” she said. challenges. Many suffer from extreme Priscilla has used that same Priscilla’s cousin, 18-year-old Zane, is poverty and some have to manage drive to become one of Klipplaat only in Grade 10. He is repeating Grade 10 households after parents have died.

Secondary’s top students. for the second year in a row. She believes In most small communities in South A year before our visit, every student in he is struggling in school because he is still Africa, households suffer from food the school’s senior class had failed the trial suffering from the death of his mother. insecurity (the lack of the right types of exam, the exam necessary to graduate and Her grandparents see her as a sort of food) and the displacement of individual move on to schools beyond the high school guiding light for her cousins. With Zane members of families, according to a 2011 level. The trial exam and the control test struggling through high school and three study by the journal “Ecology and Society.” lead to the National Senior Certificate. much younger children grappling with “Addressing hunger and food scarcity will The NSC “not only signifies the living away from their parents, Priscilla increase students’ attention span. Hungry culmination of 12 years of formal schooling, feels responsibility to help the cousins. kids don’t concentrate,” said Levack. but the NSC examination is one of the key Priscilla plans to attend university Despite the serious issues facing the barometers to indicate the state of health soon with the help of scholarships. of the education system,” Of the young people in according to South Africa’s Grade 12, Ketchum said, “For Department of Basic Education. the first time in a few years, Bradley Levack, a I’m feeling really confidant.” developmental practitioner for The concern for the children the municipality of Ikwezi, and families of Klipplaat is which includes Klipplaat, evident with everyone you talk said, “Education can only be to. Community members and improved if the government volunteers seriously want better delivers on its mandate to outcomes for the children. make quality education Levack believes the children accessible to everyone.” must understand that they, The seriousness of students ultimately, have the greatest and parents is essential, control over the outcomes of their lives and the people said Johannes Olifant, a of their community. community organizer.

Photo by Chris Allen “My hope is for them to “They have access to The architecture of Port Elizabeth is diverse and not always well maintained. The understand love,” he said. everything,” he said. “When same can be said for the educational system of South Africa.

Children have the greatest control of the outcomes of their lives.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

45

I Crave Freedom from the Confines of Our Family’s Male Tradition As I walk Route 67, I wonder if women ever will be granted a chair at the man’s table

By Ziphozakhe Hlobo After learning why my father was shot eight times many years ago in his home village of Engcobo in the Eastern Cape, I shake my head. I should have known better.

I was too young when he died to realize what truly happened, but I think about his death every time I walk down Route 67 and see the “Conversational Piece.”

I think about the shooting and how women in my family have been abused for generations.

What is that woman standing there doing?

Is she cleaning and cooking for men? Is she dressed that way because she is a housewife waiting patiently behind that chair to serve her husband after he comes back from work?

“I am no longer afraid of being shot because I survived a deadly shooting,” Father often boasted when he recounted the brutal shooting that nearly left him dead.

Narrating this story, he would turn to Mother to confirm details that he was not certain about, and she would nod if he had said something accurate or shake her head if he had not.

Even though the story became Father’s “comic narration” to break tension in awkward situations, during the shooting there was little to laugh about because Father said he really thought he was going to die.

I heard this story, and plenty of others, during my visits to Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s dangerous township where my mother lived. The township often felt like a prison because of the number of criminals

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you would walk past every day, and sometimes walking its streets on a Friday night felt like knocking on death’s door.

As we walked with him, Father would tell the “shooting” story to ease our fears, implying that he was a largerthan-life man and that Mother, my two sisters, my brother and I should not be alarmed by the consistent sounds of cries and gunshots at night.

“Why did you get shot?” my little sister would inquire, and Mother would laugh and say he was resisting men who wanted to rob him.

One night while we were sleeping in my aunt’s little house in the same area, we heard sounds of windows being broken.

“You’ve ruined my house! You’ve ruined my house!” exclaimed a voice that sounded familiar. For as long as I had visited Cape Town, she had always been called Mam’ehouse (mother of the house), and she was known for her loud voice and evil ways.

Suddenly we heard the sound of police cars and boys shouting, “We will be back, you witch! You witch!”

Mam’ehouse was known as a witch and promiscuous, an ungodly woman who slept with other women’s husbands. It was said

that she would bewitch the men to make them leave their wives and children.

“How else can you explain that joke of a marriage with that old man in her house?” people would ask among themselves.

“That poor man. She bewitched him and made him leave his wife and kids.”

“But then again, did anyone put a gun on that stupid man’s head to leave his wife and kids?” my aunt would say.

Her clarifications did not satisfy, and I wondered where the rumors came from.

When my father hit my mother or came home drunk and swore at everyone, the consolation from my aunt would be, “Don’t think that your father is the first one to abuse and cheat on his wife. Our father, your grandfather, was the same — even the ones before him were the same.

It’s a Thembu-man thing.” And if you dared ask my aunts and my female cousins why they are not married, they would say, “Look at these men in this family.

What if we get the same kind of men?”

From what I have gathered while eavesdropping on adult conversations, my grandfather was quite a catch — flamboyant, light-skinned and good with his tongue around women. When he came back from the mine after running out of money, MamCwerha would have to care for him and use up all the money she had made being a domestic worker in Port Elizabeth.

“But the wonder of it all is that when MamCwerha fell ill with lung cancer during the 1980s, your grandfather did not lift a hand to help her. He was all over the village giving his women all of his money, some of MamCwerha’s money and vegetables from her garden,” my female cousins often said.

“Even your father, MamCwerha’s favorite son, did not help,” a cousin told me. “It was us women who nursed MamCwerha.”

MamCwerha, my grandmother, is still remembered in the village as one of the fiercest and zero-tolerant wives Thembu men have seen. When my grandfather, George Zaphalala Hlobo, started cheating on

‘‘

…these men had already been ruined by their mothers and there was nothing that they could do to change them.

her with other women in the village, she started sleeping in her own room.

He often would go to Johannesburg to work in the mines and would not come back or write to MamCwerha for many years.

I never met MamCwerha because she died during the late 1980s, leaving my grandfather a sad lonely man who had given all his money to women in the village. By then he was too old to work in the mines so Mother decided that he would come and stay with us. Many years later, he went to bed one night and did not wake up.

His death seemed to affect everyone in the village. People came in droves to support the family.

“But why would he be loved so much, and why was MamCwerha resented so much?” I would ask.

“He is a man,” my aunts would answer.

They answered like they had been defeated by the power of men in the family, like they had given up making sense of the situation, like patriarchy was a normal part of our lives. It was as though they had accepted the burden of caring, feeding, clothing and unconditionally loving these men — even if their love was not returned.

“George was our father, and your father is our brother,” they would say at the end of every feminist conversation.

If you spoke to my mother and the other women who were married to the men in my family, they would tell you that these men had already been ruined by their mothers and there was nothing that they could do to change them.

“This is how it has always been.”

They worked and cared for their children and husbands without uttering a complaint.

They were loyal to their husbands’ families and would never leave, or they would have disgraced their own families and would be called umabuy’ekwendeni (the one who has left her marriage and returned home).

“Your mother took care of your father like he was her child, just as MamCwerha took care of your grandfather,” my aunts often would tell me, and they would continue to say how they would never do that for a man.

“But it’s not entirely your mother’s fault he is like that. MamCwerha and the rest of us — his sisters —are to blame as well. If he had been a woman, we never would have tolerated him or your grandfather for that matter. In this family, men are the ones who are favored.”

But why did they stay and put up with this vicious cycle of abuse? What was it inside MamCwerha’s heart that made her love the boys more than the girls?

What was it inside my mother’s mind that made her stay with my father?

“Your father was ruined by your mother because she spoilt him,” one neighbor in Khayelitsha told me. “Now he is unable to take responsibility because she continued what his mother started and always covered for him.”

After fighting with my father, one angry relative told me why Father had been shot many years ago in his home village.

“He was busy sleeping with that man’s wife while his own wife was at work making ends meet. Then his poor good wife had to come back and pay for his hospital bills.”

That poor good wife was my mother, who had told us that Father was shot because he was resisting a robbery.

How did she do it? How is it that she could stand there next to him, smiling and patting his back in full support of what he was saying?

As I finish my walk down Route 67, I wonder if women will ever be granted a chair at the men’s table. Will they ever be considered worthy of respect?

I crave freedom from the confines of our family’s male tradition, but if that freedom is not attainable, I will become a feminist and never be with a man.

And I will build my own home.

In Cape Town, there is great music and entertainment.

Port Elizabeth

Has Its Share of

Real Africa But pockets of difference are fighting this reality one hungry belly at a time

A stray dog scavenges for food on a typical South African township street.

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By Lisa Wiedeman

F

or a young, white female who is used to the finer things in middle-class life, New Brighton is an eyesore.

For a first-time visitor, it is daunting to get there. You travel through the industrial areas that puff out noxious gas and blacken the walls. On the main roads, people dawdle, walk and run, and you never know why they’re running. Cars come out of nowhere — and sometimes are in the process of disappearing somewhere.

The road is strewn with squashed oranges, Simba packets, and a heavy history.

But turning down a side street shows you the residential New Brighton, and it is difficult to decide whether or not to be frightened. There are dogs everywhere. They run under, in front of and alongside cars, and bark like they mean it. There also are kids who look smaller than their school bags, and whose eyes are big and inquisitive.

Ladies sell, men huddle, and the old people clean or sit.

Everything moves.

Dust skims along the tarmac, litter takes to the sky, and your heart plummets.

You cannot understand the place, unless one is from there. One cannot understand the smells, the attitudes, or the hunger of the kids. However, there is a building where people try to understand and solve this portion of the world’s problems.

Bureaucracy built the place, neglected it and left it for dead.

A small group revived it.

In the middle of large grounds stands a cement block. It used to be a school, but when it closed, it became the base of a guerrilla operation — in the form of an aftercare centre.

The centre does not own the building. It does not own the soil, but the employees painted the walls and built a jungle gym on the grass.

The children love it. Maybe a hundred of them come to the centre each day after school, expecting lunch and safety, regardless of the lack of funding or the handful of employees.

“Umlungu, umlungu!” the kids shout while trying to get your attention.

They don’t know your name to start with, but surprise you when they remember it week after week.

Photo by Chris Allen

One of the factories in the industrial area on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

49

It’s difficult to remember theirs.

“What is your name?” they ask, laughing at their use of English.

“Lisa. What’s your name?”

“Siphokazi,” she replies, looking at her hands to signal the end of the conversation.

Words don’t come easily to these kids — and speaking English to a white lady with foreign hair is terrifying.

Before words come pinches, punches, kicks, tears.

Sometimes you really have to wring sentences out of them, which is frustrating when you’re trying to conduct a class.

“Is that soup?”

“Yes.” “It looks yummy.”

“Yes.” “Will we see you tomorrow?”

“Yes.” They like to tell you what you want to hear, or what they think is the right answer, rather than express themselves.

It isn’t clear whether this is because they are not encouraged to think for themselves or because they are just constructing a game in which whoever gets the most approving nods wins.

Some of the children are six.

Some are 16. Generally, their reading abilities are the same.

There is a drama club, and its popularity is based on the idea that the kids are encouraged to dream.

Romanticized notions of the poor sometimes give one the idea that dreams come naturally. However, future goals, personal successes and happiness only develop in the right environment.

One has to cultivate these things, planting ideas in their minds, watering them with optimism, only learning the percentage yield years later.

Outside the fences, promises are fickle.

They litter the pavements, and drift from mouth to mouth, parent to child, state to people. The state is too far removed from these children to know realities.

There is a definite rift between the elected and the voters — the sole connection is statistics that lie in the “In” trays of politicians, and only gain importance during campaigns. Umntwana wakho, ngumntwana wami: the state campaigns for this, before sanitation, before employment, before parents can look after their own children, never mind their neighbours’.

“You can’t get emotionally involved.

You mustn’t think about it, because it’s

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A child plays outside his shack home in a Port Elizabeth township.

not our job to help them in that way.”

It makes sense. But if we don’t help them, who will?

“What’s wrong?”

No answer.

“Are you OK?” A shaky lip.

“Talk to me.”

Tears.

These little children carry such heavy loads. Sometimes what helps is to get them to draw a picture. It calms them and distracts them from their thoughts. The little girls draw hearts and European-looking stick figures, and the little boys draw graffiti and write “I love you” in English.

These things are pleasant to see. They briefly capture normalcy within the

Photo by Chris Allen

chaos of poverty. Other times, all that helps is for one of the meaty security guards or strong male volunteers to replace an absent father for that short time and hold a weeping child.

Are you poor?

Yes. Are you hurting?

Yes. Are you just a baby?

Yes. It’s not fair.

No. The parents seem grateful to the centre.

A small number of them make their way to the grounds at sunset, carrying jackets for their kids, and greeting the security guards. These are good people whose eyes

smile at the sight of their little ones, and who carry the marks of hard labour. Other children must be told to leave. Reluctantly, they walk home in large groups that disintegrate at the end of the road. It is the parents of some of these kids who have started sending their children to the centre early in the morning for breakfast.

The centre does not serve breakfast, but these parents now expect it. They do not see the wrong in allowing others to care for their children, especially the Whites.

It’s a stressful situation, and being responsible for a hundred kids at a time is not something for which one easily volunteers. The children fight. It doesn’t take much to set them off — crisps, juice, bread can end in scratches, cries and scars.

“What’s he doing?” shouted an American volunteer.

“Put it down!”

A little boy stood, focused, facing his companion. His scrawny arms were

Photo by Chris Allen

On the busy streets running through the township areas, everything from fruit to clothing to live chickens and cooked goat heads can be bought.

Photo by Chris Allen

Most residents don’t have running water or electricity, so women walk daily to bring water home from one tap shared by hundreds of people.

reaching upwards, and a large rock in his miniscule hands shook precariously.

The target was the other boy’s head.

“He could have really hurt someone or himself.”

The fight was probably over the crisps.

It’s a different world compared to that of a middle-class White. There are different rules of play and different emphases.

Africa: land of the brave, land of the strong and fairly stubborn.

Port Elizabeth has its share of real Africa, and not just the diluted versions to which the middle class is accustomed.

At times, these parts of the city are frightening, daunting and disheartening.

But the small pockets of difference that appear — fighting these realities — operate like guerilla warfare. They change society, one hungry belly at a time.

They are not glamorous. They are functional, and they are vital.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

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This City Offers People Freedom To Unite

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Photo by Chris Allen

Busy Strand Street, towered over by the highway above, is the main transport hub of the city where taxis and buses start and end their journeys.

The communities of Port Elizabeth have a heightened sense of freedom

By Rahmat Luvuyo Nomvete Port Elizabeth is a uniting force in so many ways.

When Bongani arrived in Port Elizabeth, a few of us took him for a taxi ride around the city. It was a fine day, and for once the wind was not blowing too hard. Bongani, a friend from Queenstown, was looking forward to his next few years as a student at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Lusindiso, a taxi driver, had agreed to take us into New Brighton township. He proudly pointed out some of the sites of significant events in South African history.

He also showed us some of the locally initiated NGOs that have been established.

“How do you know that someone’s from PE?” Bongani asked. “What are some of their distinguishing features?”

“Their hair is untidy because of the wind!” I said, and everyone

in the combi laughed.

Mac Jon, a friend from the remote town of Willowmore, said, “The coloured people actually have all their front teeth.”

We laughed again as Mac Jon explained how perplexed he was on the first trip to visit family in Cape Town. “I thought that it would be the same when I came to PE, but I was relieved to see most of my fellow coloured people with a full set of teeth.”

Sino added that one actually can understand the coloured people in PE. Their accents are not as thick as those of the coloured community in Cape Town.

“One thing I don’t like about us, though, is that we don’t support our local artists enough,” he said.

Sino, who grew up in PE, said many local musicians and filmmakers find little support in their own city. In Johannesburg hundreds of supporters come to their shows.

“There’s a reason why this place is called the friendly city, hey,” Sisize pointed out.

“People greet you randomly. This never happens in East London, where I’m from.”

A stranger had given Ntomboxolo a cell phone pouch during another taxi ride.

Countless times people have freely and enthusiastically offered directions when I found myself lost in Port Elizabeth.

“Going back to the point about accents,” Sanda said, “the coloured community may be easier to understand, but black

people have a really funny accent.”

All the IsiXhosa-speaking friends in the combi knew exactly what Sanda meant.

“It’s as if they’ve diluted their Xhosa and given it an Afrikaans twist,” he said.

We laughed at some of the strange phrases and words one only hears from IsiXhosa-speaking PE residents.

“Yintoni dana?”

“Ndiphindela pha veer.”

“Sizo dibana ngo-Forri.”

“Uvarhele ntoni?”

Placide, a master’s student from Cameroon, said, the white community is less racist in PE and the skin colour of the black community is lighter than it is in most parts of Africa. But he was disappointed at how poor the level of education is here.

“This is something that the government and the community really need to work together on.”

Mac Jon said, “The one thing that’s common among all the various communities in PE is a heightened sense of freedom.”

For him, the people of PE seem to feel freer than any other people.

They walk around with a triumphant air. Anyone can talk to anyone. The social barriers are much less stiff.

As we approached King’s Beach, I observed that Port Elizabeth is a city that offers people freedom and that freedom unites the city.

Photo by Chris Allen

A taxi driver yells and points at another taxi that is in his way. There is a sense of “survival of the fittest” in this privately run transport industry and at times the passengers are caught in the middle.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

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Photo by Chris Allen

This path leads off Govan Mbeki and towards the distant Fish Bone sculpture and the Campanile, a meeting of the old and the new.

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THEOFTHOUGHT LIVING IN

PORT ELIZABETH FILLED ME WITH

FOREBODING Embizweni reminded me that NMMU is an anchor of hope and a symbol of intellectual growth

By Okhule Dotwana

2013 Reflections on Freedom

55

I

first came to Port Elizabeth in 2009.

It had a reputation for being a “big city” on the Eastern Cape, and I expected bright lights, tall buildings and bustling streets. Big cities were dirty and poorly maintained, robberies took place in broad daylight, and people were unfriendly.

Not being a big-city girl, I preferred registering at a small town university. However, my dream programme, bachelor’s degree in Media, Communication and Culture was offered only at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

So I moved to the big city.

As my mother’s car approached Port Elizabeth early on that January morning, a sense of foreboding overcame me. The main street was overflowing with people, there were tall buildings, and everything seemed dirty.

My spirits sank. Then I saw a building in the distance that is taller than the rest.

“That must be NMMU,” I thought to myself.

It was the Embizweni Building that is pictured in almost all the university’s marketing material.

Three years later, I’m still not a fan of big cities or Port Elizabeth.

However, living only 10 minutes from the university, I was able to use NMMU to insulate myself from the rest of Port Elizabeth.

Embizweni stands out from the other buildings of the city, reminding residents and passersby that NMMU is an anchor of hope on the Eastern Cape.

You cannot call yourself an NMMU student until you have

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had at least one unpleasant run-in with a monkey, or even worse, troupe of monkeys. Screams of “Monkey alert! Monkey alert!” can be heard regularly on NMMU’s South and North campuses.

This is a warning to hide any food or any shiny objects. It is not uncommon for bright and shiny objects, such as handbags and highlighter pens, to attract monkeys to invade lecturers’ offices.

NMMU is in the middle of a nature reserve, and the natural surroundings are a wonderful setting for young people trying to become skilled, knowledgeable citizens who will help to improve our nation, the continent and the world.

The monkey alert scream is also sounded in the campus student residences, where the monkeys are attracted by the smell of food. Through the years, the monkeys have learned how to open drawers and wardrobes where food is kept and help themselves to students’ stashes.

I earned my stripes in my first year when I was walking outside with my friend Meme. We were both enjoying pink-watermelonflavoured lollipops. As we chattered away, we did not notice a monkey watching us. Unbeknownst to us, we walked past it, with our lollies in hand. Suddenly, the monkey ran toward us, presumably eyeing the lollies. We ran away screaming like crazy people, much to the amusement of other students and security guards nearby.

During my time at this university, I am amazed at the growth on campus. Every year since 2009, the queues at the computer labs, the library and the cafeterias have gotten longer and longer. The number of students who choose to enroll at NMMU has increased each year, and

these students are making their mark. A solar car, a cell phone app that tutors high school math and roses that can last up to six months are some of the contributions of NMMU students in recent years.

Students and taxi drivers spend so much time together, they recognize one another. Indeed, the ladies at the nearby Spar know students well. They even know what they will buy and on which day of the week.

At the beginning of each academic year, a wave of fresh-faced students gets lost on its way to class and has to ask for directions.

On any given day, it is possible to hear more than five languages spoken.

Some students do not have a fair opportunity to get an education. They struggle financially or have family responsibilities that prevent them from going to school. We are faced with the challenge of many households headed by children. The parents have passed away because of AIDS-related illnesses, and the eldest child is left with the responsibility of taking care of the younger children.

When I was a freshman, a classmate’s mother had liver cancer and was on her deathbed. During class or group meetings, this student received many phone calls, telling her to come immediately to the hospital. Every time that phone rang, it could be the last time she would see her mother alive, and she would rush out of class without packing her things.

Other students are their own worst enemies. My friend likes to say, after a deep sigh and disapproving shake of the head, “First semester is baby-making season, second semester is

baby-makers exposing season.” By this she means the people who become pregnant in the first half of the year are usually showing by the second half of the year. These are students who seem intent on engaging in reckless behavior such as unprotected sex. These are the students who, despite many warnings, do not take advantage of positive opportunities.

Still other students have opportunities their peers would give anything to have, but they take them for granted. These students surround themselves with “friends” who negatively influence their lives. They do not graduate on time, but that does not bother them.

They can be seen lounging around university “hot spots” like The Kraal during class time on Facebook or YouTube at the computer labs when they have a ton of school work to do. They spend much of their university careers hanging out with friends and drinking.

A few students always do their best with their schoolwork and use their time at the university wisely.

NMMU boasts a number of these.

David Powels is one of them. He was graduated cum laude and now is managing director of Volkswagen of South Africa.

Laduma Ngxokolo is another. Despite being orphaned at a young age, he worked hard as a textile design student and has showcased his works at the world’s biggest fashion weeks.

After three years here, my feelings about the city are not any better, but my affection grows for Embizweni, a tower of hope for students and a symbol of intellectual growth.

I will always love NMMU.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

57

Mbali’s Story is My Story Out of my deepest pain, across the purest bits of my heart, I remember her bravery.

By Ziphozakhe Hlobo

S

he sits on a chair inside a hall surrounded by her friends and wipes away tears with a small white tissue.

She gasps for air and her words are formed slowly with a shaky voice.

Sitting beside her, I begin to travel the avenues of her soul, and each word is a pain to my heart.

This is Nkosi’s Haven, an orphanage.

When one enters at the beginning of the day, the kids sometimes race to give you a hug that says “Good morning!” But the next day you might say, “Good morning,” and their eyes would reply, “What’s so good about it?”

Most of the children are dealing with immense pain.

These kids remind me of myself.

Their excitement, the time it takes to get them to listen, their rebellion and their prurience. Quite often, they walk back and forth next to any face that does not look familiar. Their eyes widen, and they whisper, “Who’s he?”

But, if they get silly in front of the guests, Gail Johnson, founder of the Haven, gives a look that says, “Stop it or else …”

The Haven was founded in 1999, two years before Johnson’s adopted son, Nkosi Johnson, died of AIDS at age 13.

She named the Haven after him, and it became a home for mothers and children infected and affected by AIDS. The kids have taken after Nkosi, who, despite his frailty, stood in front of masses at an AIDS conference and said, “Hi, my name is Nkosi Johnson. … I have full blown AIDS.” It is the first day of class, the kids are gathered in a hall learning a song, and I join the rhythm of the words written on a blue page posted on the wall. “And your story is my story, and I am not alone. …”

Later that day, after wrapping up class, some of the kids remain with us.

One of them asks me, “Are you Xhosa ?”

I look at her, smile and confirm that I am, and she tells me that her mother’s side of her family has some Xhosa people. “My name is Mbali.”

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“But that’s a Zulu name. Your name should be Nontyatyambo.”

“I don’t like that Xhosa translation of my name,” she says, mocking the ferocious sounds and clicks of my language, and then mimics how Xhosa people always sound angry when speaking.

The other girls in the room join the conversation. They ask me to teach them the three Xhosa clicks, but Mbali is the only one who is able to pronounce them perfectly.

A few days later, the laughter I shared with Mbali is replaced by tears of a child who lost her mother to AIDS a few months earlier. Her words recite a child’s wish for a mother’s love — a mother’s hug.

Her words are a pain to my heart.

Brave enough to tell it, Mbali wants this story to be her performance piece for the final day of the camp, and I help her rehearse.

Each time she tells it, I am astounded by how much I begin to remember from my own experience.

I am reluctant to give in to these countless memories.

The last time I cried the way Mbali was crying was when I called my mother’s work place.

“Hello, may I speak to Nikiwe please?”

There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line.

Then Tania Bounce, my mother’s madam, finally said, “Nikiwe? She was involved in a car accident last week and died. Did you not hear about it?”

My father said she was hit by a car and died a few hours later. My sister said they had to burn the clothes she had been wearing because they were a pool of blood. The doctors said she suffered severe brain injury. If she had lived, she would have been just an object.

The police did not have much to report because it was a hit and run accident.

At the visitation, the elders told me to look at the body in the coffin.

When I did, I did not recognize Mother.

Sitting on a piece of chair made from wood, hair extensions tied to the

back, Mbali looks at the book she will be reading as she begins her story.

Her entire extended family turned against her immediate family when her mother became ill. So she, her sister and her mother moved to the Haven.

When her mother died, few people attended the funeral.

“The worst thing is that people are now talking bad things about my mother because she had AIDS. They are even saying that she is the one who killed my father.”

I recall how my father often bluntly criticized my mother after her death.

Mbali is not telling her story for people to feel sorry for her.

“People think that I am looking for attention, but they don’t know how I really feel.”

I recall the faces of the people at my mother’s funeral. They were looking at us — four poor, sad kids thinking exactly what we were thinking: “What will happen to us?”

Fourteen-year-old Mbali will never forget being told, “Your mother is no longer living in the world that we are living in.”

With time I thought I would heal, but I soon learned that the pain of a

Photo by Chris Allen

Beautiful Nonki has had a very difficult life, but can smile at even the simple pleasures in life.

Photo by Chris Allen

There are places of safety scattered across the city all trying to provide shelter for the many orphans and abused children. Here, some children at a home enjoy an afternoon of painting in the sun.

loss is enduring. It is physical pain that hits my neck veins, and tightens the muscles of my back, making my knees ache and numbing the tips of my toes.

I let the tears run down my cheeks.

With each word she says, I miss my mother.

I miss her warm genuine smile, which lit her beautiful light brown face, and small brown eyes. I miss her “young girl” tales about being reprimanded by so-and-so’s mother for standing with a boy on the road on her way to fetch water from the river.

When she finished telling these stories, she would go to the kitchen and start cooking while Father would narrate hilarious stories about being a village boy and going to Johannesburg, where he always got mugged because he was not “street wise” and his village upbringing came through

his voice and was written all over his face.

The four of us would circle around him, our faces changing with every exaggerated gesture, and we giggled loudly when he finished each story as if we had just heard it for the first time.

“Tell that one about being robbed in the casino!” my mother would shout from the kitchen, and the four of us would wrestle our way to the kitchen only to realize she had not just said, “Food is ready!”

I miss my visits to see her in Cape Town. I miss the feeling I used to get when mother’s petite silhouette appeared on the horizon as the sun was preparing to set.

At the end of each day, whether she had been delayed by a bus, lost track of time while chattering with a friend or visited a sick relative, she would always would find her way back home.

When she took me to the bus station in Port Elizabeth the last time, she sat quietly beside me, listening to my heart’s words.

I did not want to leave her, but she took my hand, walked me to the bus, kissed me, smiled and said “See you this time next year.”

Immediately I stopped crying.

I knew I would see her again.

The confidence with which she had walked away convinced me that she would never break that promise.

But little did she know that on a rainy winter day she would be hit by a speeding car.

Today, out of my deepest pain, across the purest bits of my heart, when I long to see her face again, I remember Mbali’s bravery, and I find myself singing, “And your story is my story, and I am not alone.”

IsiXhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. One of the most distinctive features of the language is the prominence of click consonants; the word “Xhosa” begins with a click.

2013 Reflections on Freedom

59

We Are

Homeless Somewhat

I feel the pain of South Africa, homogenized to suit Europeans, and my home has become where my body rests at night.

By Ziphozakhe Hlobo

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

It’s windy and the sand has risen for an uncomfortable dusty day. The sound of Golden Arrows buses leaving Strand Street make a noisy chant.

I wait with others before crossing the road to the train station.

“Last call for passengers going to Chris Hani. The train on platform 21 is in motion.

The train will stop at all stations.”

The queue at the ticket sales shop is long, and I miss my train.

“When is the next train?”

I ask the cleaner.

Silence.

An hour later, I am inside a dirty train compartment packed with passengers.

Some are sitting and some are standing so close to me that I can smell what they ate — or drank — for lunch.

“Where is your home?” an old man asks a young man.

This is generally how black people start conversations. Often they will even ask, “What is your clan?” and then they tell you that their grandfather’s mother’s niece’s daughter has the same clan.

I don’t really care.

The young man says he is from Cape Town.

“A black man cannot call a city his home.”

“But I was born here.”

“Where were your parents born?”

“They were born in the Eastern Cape.”

“Then that’s your home” The theory of the old man is that one belongs to the home where one’s grandfather was born, which, for black people in South Africa, always is a village outside the big cities.

The young man says he has a house in Cape Town. He believes that Cape Town is his home because he has never Photo by Chris Allen been to his parent’s village.

A pair of shoes lie abandoned in the city market square.

The discussion grows into an argument, and And now I am in Cape Town. other passengers interrupt, My parents’ house was sold after trying to calm emotions. my mother died, so my sisters and I “Hello, brothers and sisters. Ever usually stay with relatives or rent. seen a snake’s cleavage?” a short, lightWhen we are asked where are home skinned and toothless hawker shouts. is, our answer is not acceptable.

I am told that he makes passengers A place with two or three women laugh before he sells his chips, cannot be a home. However, my siblings fruit and cigarettes. People end up and I always have lived with relatives taking out their last cents to buy in nuclear or single-parent households, from him because of his humour. but we always felt we did not belong.

I was born in Queenstown, in I am not trying to narrate another the Eastern Cape, just outside my sad story from a black South African mother’s home village. I never knew girl. I want to break free from those my mother’s parents. My father was boring primordial, often untrue, born Engcobo, in the Eastern Cape. ideologies that define being black.

When I was seven, my parents sent But this is my reality; this is the story me to my aunt in Port Elizabeth, and she of my life. I am somewhat homeless. raised me. I was the girl with a village I mean not “homeless” homeless, but accent and poor parents, living in a homeless. Like the way Luvuyo feels, middle-class neighbourhood of a city. the way white Africans never fully feel

The city of Cape Town is a beautiful sight from the air.

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European or fully African, and the way South Africa is never quite sure if it is Indian, black, coloured, white or foreign in Africa. South Africa is too cosmopolitan in Africa, but too backwards globally.

I feel like South Africa. I feel her pain. When Europeans could not appreciate her richness and diversity, they homogenized her to suit themselves.

For example, Americans ask, “What is the South African accent or traditional dish?” I never know which accent to mimic or which “tradition” to pick.

Being homeless can be lonely, and I am always uncertain of my certainty — even my sanity. I wish I could dine with friends, during birthdays and Christmas, in my home with a perfect nuclear family.

I wish I could bring guests to that home and tell them, “This is my parents’ house.

Here is the door. Here are the windows, and here is the floor. Outside are trees and grass so green, we grow peas and potatoes, the best you’ve seen.”

Because Mother lived in Cape Town until she died, I moved to Cape Town thinking the move would provide a sense of home. Because Mother’s sister was in Cape Town, I thought I would feel at home.

After I moved to Cape Town, my sisters and I wanted to know about our mother’s family history.

“You have to know this: Your mother was not my biological sister. She was my cousin,” my aunt told my sisters and me.

“Your mother’s mother was a drunk, and she left for Johannesburg when your mother was barely a year old. No one ever heard from her again. Your mother’s father left when your grandmother was still pregnant.”

“I grew up with your mother, and we were raised as sisters by our uncle Frank and his wife Sarah. My parents both died before I was five.”

To my siblings and me, this confirmed that we did not really have a home.

Cape Town was just an illusion. I did not have a home.

I felt the pieces of my home completely shattered.

I had no idea where to begin fixing or rebuilding.

My sisters were tempted to look for our grandmother, but I missed Port Elizabeth.

At least Port Elizabeth was homish for me because I grew up there. I had friends there, and I went to school there.

I came across a Rastafarian artistic movement and built friendships. You should see the way people often stare at me when I attend their gigs and visit their homes.

The Rastas told me about their struggles regarding their way of life. One was thrown out of school during the 1990s because of the oppressive stereotypes Photo by Chris Allen attached to Rastafarians, and woman hails a taxi on Strand Street in Port Elizabeth with her child on her back. he never returned to school.

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Reflections on Freedom 2013

“Who can employ me? People look at these dreadlocks, and they say I am dirty.

Even our kids as Rastas struggle to go to school because we are being sidelined.

People in America and Europe love our music, but here in Africa, in our own home, we are denied human rights.”

I did research about whether local schools in Port Elizabeth would allow Rastafarian children to attend their schools. Ninety percent said “no.”

The other Rasta fled his religious family in Zimbabwe, illegally entering South Africa to stay with his Rastafarian friends. His family does not talk to him or financially support him. He has been homeless since he became a Rastafarian.

“Life is rough, my sister, but Jah is with us.”

They make damn good revolutionary and conscious reggae music. So I felt the need to work with them to try to raise awareness that Rastafarians are human beings. This is not without challenges.

“Jah is the one keeping you alive, and Rasta is the true meaning of being African. If you are not Rasta, you are not African,” they say.

We cannot agree, but we come to an understanding to focus on music and poetry.

Their frustration with society lingers in my mind. I cannot understand why people choose to look at the things that differentiate us, instead of realizing that we are all human beings.

Like me, the Rastas have a sense of not fully belonging. For them, Rasta is Africa, and so they want to be accepted in Africa.

To be homeless is the epitome of being loyal to humanity for humanity’s sake, and I feel peace with my homeless identity because, at least for me, people are people.

I love those suburban snobs I grew up with, those backward rural girls I left when I went to Port Elizabeth and those ghetto boys who used to whistle at me on the streets when I visited Mother in Cape Town.

Being homeless opens my heart to possibilities. I don’t get homesick. I can blend in.

It is exciting not knowing where I will end up and where the next lifetime lesson will come from. It could even come from an old man in a train compartment asking me, “Where is your home?”

My home is where my body rests when night falls. It could be my aunt’s place, a friend’s house or a flat I rent.

Clearly, I am at home being homeless.

Students in the Class Kate du Toit manages international partnerships at NMMU. She previously was a producer and scriptwriter at Rooftop Productions and a foreign language teacher. She is owner of The Writing Co. Bracey Harris is a senior at Ole Miss. She has internships at a television station in Jackson, MS, and at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. She is in the Honors College and the Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

Jontarius Haywood was graduated from Ole Miss since taking the course in Port Elizabeth. He majored in broadcast journalism and has chosen to begin his career by teaching middle school in the Mississippi Delta community where he grew up.

Ziphozakhe Hlobo is a poet and creative writer. In her poem “I Am An African,” she describes herself as “a descendant of the Thembu clan, ooQhudeni, ooMpafane nooThukela.” She wrote, “I know where I come from … I am a young woman, the pride of Africa.”

Andrew Howarth was the comedian in the class, a perceptive young man who took the visitors from Mississippi out to show them Port Elizabeth. He often spoke of how different his South Africa is from that of his parents.

Rahmat Luvuyo Nomvete is a Bahai from Umtata in the Eastern Cape. His mother is Persian and his father Xhosa. He was a volunteer in the holy Land for a year and committed to memory The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh.

Okhule Dotwana was graduated from NMMU with a major in public relations and communications. She is from Bhisho, the capital of the Eastern Cape.

Bhisho is the Xhosa word for buffalo. The town previously was called Bisho.

Lisa Weideman is a graduate student in journalism, media and philosophy. She has written on the possibilities of ecofeminism and on hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo. Her multiple interests seem to focus on stewardship of resources.