Week 3: There's Always Something to Learn

Before reading up on some history and current events, I've decided to lay out what I know about South Africa point blank.

• Apartheid, the word for systematic racial segregation in the country, ended in 1994. I was one year old. 
• I've never been to any African country. From observations of friends who have been to Cape Town (and by observations I mean stalking Facebook photos), the geography of Cape Town reminds me a lot of Rio de Janeiro's landscape. Meaning beautiful, but also starkly unequal. When you're on the beach in Rio, you can look up and see the favelas (slums) in plain view. I wonder where the townships in Cape Town are situated. 
• South Africa has eleven official languages, one of them being Afrikaans (which sounds similar to Dutch). The wealth of culture is pretty overwhelming but equally exciting. 
• The people I'm met from South Africa have really cool accents. 
• Has anyone gone through a Die Antwoord phase? I know they're a controversial group, and I'm curious to see what people in South Africa think of them. Putting this out there: 

• 25 years ago today, Nelson Mandela was released from a 27-year prison sentence. Here's a photo of him raising his fist in triumph with his then-wife Winnie on that sunny Feb. 11, 1990 afternoon in Cape Town.

Although I knew the general idea behind apartheid, reading details about specific laws in the 20th century emphasized how much of a parallel can be drawn between the history of the United States and the history of South Africa. Knowing this, and considering the current issues still facing the United States, I'm curious to see race relations as they exist in South Africa.

Both a strength and a challenge for the nation is its diversity. Richness of culture is a beautiful thing, but the society suffers from stark economic inequality. Since it's so freshly democratized, it will take time for the legacy of decades of oppression to lift. It's shocking to think that the Afrikaners of Dutch, French and German descent make up only eight percent of the population and have such few points of contact with South Africa's black majority.

The African Union (AU) Summit just occurred in late January, and I'm happy to hear the main issue on the agenda was the empowerment of women (with a focus on ending child marriages). Since women make up half the population (aka, half the work force!), their contributions to the continent should be valued and their rights protected. It's a fundamental issue. Not only because we should respect all human beings regardless of their gender, but because women are significant players in Africa's growing economy.

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Background on our guest speaker Mr. David Gilmour, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs:

He managed academic and professional exchanges and cultural presentations during South Africa's transition to democracy in the early 1990s.

It's been 21 years since the official end of the apartheid system. A question I had for him is what kind of specific economic changes have taken place in those years to advance the poor socioeconomic reality of South Africans?