Theresa grows in understanding

My favorite part of the excursion was seeing the things I’d only read about in books and learnt about in classes comes alive.  One of the joys of being on excursion was the traveling time that we had, which also meant that I had copious amounts of time to read, do crossword puzzles and catch up on any missing sleep.  During this time I was able to read Kaffir Boy; A true story about a young boy who grew up during apartheid South Africa in a black slum or ghetto (he refused to call it a township thinking the term sounded too quintessential and charming).  The book was the first that I read that really painted a picture o the daily struggle of blacks; the violent brutality at the hands of the police, the injustice of the pass laws, the laws and systems that were impossible to negotiate (especially when they were not in your first language), the bitter cold of a winter in an informal house made of corrugated metal, the wrenching pain of starvation and malnutrition, the fear of gangs, and so much more.

One of the things that fascinated me the most when reading this book was the pass laws In class and thru reading other books, they had talked and I had learnt very matter of factly about the inconveniences of the pass laws and passbooks.  For some background information, the pass laws were introduced in South Africa and were designed to regulate the movement of black Africans.  Essentially, the passbooks were internal passports that were compulsory for all black South Africans over the age of 16 to carry within white areas.  The passbooks contained information such as the pass holder’s fingerprints, photograph, the name of the employer, address, and other information.  From what I have gathered, an employer could only legally be a white person and the pass also documented permission that was either granted or denied to be in certain regions.  All people in South Africa had to carry passes but one of the essential differences was that if a black person was found without a passbook or a valid entry they were arrested on the spot and if a white person didn’t have theirs they had seven days to present it. 

It wasn’t until I read this book that I truly could understand that they were not just an inconvenience, that is too tame of a word, and how impossible of a system they created; to get a job you had to have a pass that was in order, but to have a pass that was in order you needed to have a job.  The book documented how the police would do raids of the ghetto in the middle of the night; breaking into houses, smashing down doors and faces, looking for people who didn’t have their pass books in order.  The people lived in a constant state of fear and terror, knowing that at any moment they could be arrested and taken from their families for an indefinite amount of time because they were not able to negotiate the intricacies and contradictions of the pass laws.  One of the most famous anti-apartheid protests is the one that happened in Sharpeville on March 21^st, 1960, famous because the peaceful anti-passbook protest, was violently ended by police brutality leaving 69 dead and many more wounded, a day which is now referred to as the Sharpeville Massacre. 

One of the most meaningful parts of our excursion was visiting Sharpeville on March 19^th, two days before the anniversary (which is now commemorated by Human Rights Day) and seeing the memorial of the protest and the massacre.  After we left the memorial we walked about Sharpeville and an elderly man came up to us and shared his story of being at the protest, and out of his pocket, almost 20 years after the official end of apartheid, he pulled the hated passbook.  I was overcome with emotion, as were many of my co-educators, the fact that he still carried the passbook something that represents the oppression, violence, and bigotry of the apartheid system.  What is so poignant about being in South Africa is that the people who were greatly affected by apartheid (both the people who benefited from it and those who suffered) are still very much alive and well.  Many people have spent the majority or more than half their lives living under the rule of apartheid, and we are so privileged to be able to talk to and learn from them.