Mariko learning about the country, its people and their history

We’ve learned so much about the country, its people, and their history since we landed here in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon. On our first full day in the city, we paid a visit to the Apartheid Museum, where all the atrocities we’ve been studying over the past few months came to life through videos and exhibits. I was so taken aback by the violence depicted in the film of various anti-apartheid protests because South Africa is always praised for its peaceful transition to a free nation, but nothing I saw on those screens looked remotely peaceful. 

           

I felt even more unsettled after visiting the Constitution Hill Prison, where hundreds of political activists were held, including Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. I couldn’t believe how barbarically and strictly enforced apartheid was, even within the prison cells themselves. While white criminals were given plenty of bedding, food, and space, the black and colored prisoners were shoved into a single room with nearly 80 others and deprived of the bare necessities. Its impossible to comprehend the fact that a white murderer would’ve been treated significantly better than a black activist incarcerated for peacefully fighting injustice. Not to mention, many of the political prisoners were essentially children, not much older than myself.

           

The last museum that we visited was the Hector Pieterson memorial, which commemorates not only Hector, the 13-year-old boy who lost his life in the Soweto Uprising, but also the lives of hundreds of other students who were murdered by the police for standing up for their right to education. I walked into that museum knowing the story of Hector Pieterson and walked out of the museum feeling as if I knew very little about the people and what happened to them during that event. One panel in the museum read, “Each victim became an entry in the long list of the dead, but this list does not tell us about the children themselves or the stories of their deaths.” I will never be able to grasp how so many children marching for such a basic right simply became a number on a death toll. And while the uprising is quite a few years behind this country, it left a wound that I don’t think will ever heal because there are no reparations great enough for what happened. The pain from apartheid era violence is incredibly evident in Johannesburg.

           

"To Honor the Youth Who Gave Their Lives in the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy"

On Human Rights Day, we were lucky enough to witness some of the festivities, which appeared more like campaign marches, but also took some time out to visit the graves of the 69 people killed in the infamous Sharpeville Massacre. I am not normally an emotional person when it comes to history, but hearing the hurt in our tour guides’ voice when she spoke about the fallen and seeing all 69 graves line nearly the length of a football field really upset me.

Fortunately, the past couple of harsh but eye-opening days have been buffered by some relaxing meals with everyone from the trip. Its been great to finally reunite, catch up, and take a step back from our busy lives in Cape Town.