Learning from amaXhosa – Woman Power

Should women and men have the same societal roles? The Xhosa would definitely say no, or at least most of them.

The most enlightening day of my trip was spent with a young woman who acted as my guide into a day in the life of a Xhosa woman. For this blog I’m going to call her Nobomi (meaning “life”). She was a remarkable young woman – unmarried at 25 years old, speaking excellent English learned from tourists, very bright and something of a feminist. The micro-enterprise started by her older sister is called “Woman Power”, and provides one or more people with a hands-on experience of a married woman’s life in the village. (My driver/guide felt I would not be able to go since it was awkward to have a man as the only person signed up, but Nobomi disagreed so I was privileged to learn from her).

The whole four-hour period revolved around the cooking of a meal. Not so hard, you’d think. 

However, I’m not used to a meal involving:

• Walking half a mile over hilly country to collect water in 25 liter tubs that are carried back home on the head. (I was given a much smaller container, that young girls would initial train with – still quite a challenge!)
• Walking a similar distance to collect firewood for cooking, again carried on the head. (This I managed better but I had really sore neck muscles the following day!)
• Lighting the outside wood fire, and the inside paraffin stove.
• Grinding the maize for umngqusho, a staple semolina-like dish.

This is obviously in addition to preparing vegetables, meat (if any), etc. The meal was shared with Nobomi and several members of her family, and though basic was quite enjoyable.

I mentioned that Nobomi is unmarried. She is a beautiful, bright, articulate and strong woman. I asked her why she had never accepted a marriage proposal (she agreed she’d had several) and she said “I will allow no man to tell me that I can’t go out to work”.

A married woman has many restrictions. Her job is to look after her husband’s family – parents, grandparents, younger siblings – and of course her own five children. Yes five. That’s the number she is expected to have, that are implicitly contracted for when lobola (bride-price) is paid by the husband. In Nqileni at least the lobola is ten head of cattle, which at prevailing prices is worth about $7,000 US – a vast amount for a poor community. In effect this represents two cows for each of the children the wife will provide to the husband’s family. Apparently, this is why, despite polygamy being accepted and legal, very few men have more than one wife!

Lobola does have a significant benefit – girls are very valuable to a family, as against cultures in which they are viewed as a liability (e.g. during China’s one-child policy). Also, even if an unmarried woman has a child, she is still eligible to be married, albeit with a lower lobola – she would now only expect to bear four more children, so lobola is set a 8 head of cattle rather than the usual ten.

(The following day, I met the village head man. He asked me how many cows I had paid for my wife, and seemed quite shocked that I hadn’t paid for her at all. Good acting on his part – this is a standard question for visitors I’m sure – but rightly seeing a major cultural difference).

Married women must wear a long skirt (hence my strange attire!) They also will often have traditional face decoration. The woolen cap serves to make it easier to carry things on the head. In community meetings, there is a men’s side and a women’s side. The married women must not cross to the men’s side, even though men and unmarried women can be either side. They are not allowed to go out and earn money at any kind of job, even on a part-time or temporary basis. Their day is fully occupied with household activities, raising children, tending animals, farming any small plot of land, etc. There is no question that they work far harder than most of the men.

Women who suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands don’t usually have the option of divorce, since the lobola would need to be repaid. However, the families and community will typically intervene and insist on behavioral changes (much more effectively than in Western families).

Overall there is great inequality between men and women, and men have far more power than seems appropriate to Western eyes. For this to change, as has been true in the West, major cultural change is necessary. Seeing men and women as equally valuable is difficult for the men (the women probably know it already!) But influences from Xhosa living in urban and suburban settings, who are much closer to Western ideas and culture, may ultimately make the change possible.

Ultimately there will be a few women who stand up and refuse to accept the idea of inferiority. I suspect Nobomi will be one of them and I am proud to know her!

Learning from amaXhosa – Traditions and Religions

I’m not a missiologist. But I have often wondered about the right balance between introduction of Christianity and the retention of native traditions. My stay in Bulungula (see my last post) has added some color to these musings.

My village guides told me quite a bit about traditions, including religion. What I learned is that syncretism is alive and well in the Eastern Cape. Actually I’d argue that it is alive and well in just about every culture – in America we have a curious mix of Christianity, nationalism, and European immigrant cultures.

In Bulungula, Christianity has been widely adopted. But as is so often the case, it seems most usually to be added on to traditional religion – not adapted to it, as the missionaries would have wished, but just tacked onto the outside. I wonder how often this is the reality?

Traditional Xhosa religion is arguably monotheistic – there is a supreme God, uQamata or umDali, the unapproachable creator and sustainer of the cosmos. This supreme God can also be referred to as uThixo, which is the name given to Yahweh in the Xhosa translation of the Bible. The creator, as the first ancestor, is accessible through ancestral spirits.

The role of the spirits of the ancestors remains very significant among rural Xhosa people. A home will typically have the grave of the oldest ancestor, whose spirit will be consulted at times of need, for guidance, and for protection. The spirit world is quite complex, and rather outside the scope of this blog. But a few things are worth mentioning. Ancestral spirits can be approached through a prayer, or through a traditional healer skilled in communicating with them.  Ancestors may also communicate directly, typically through dreams. (One reason the Xhosa generally still prefer to sleep in round huts or rondavels is that evil spirits hide in corners, and so ancestral spirits won’t communicate with the inhabitants of rectangular huts. One of my guides told me that her sister had to move to her rondavel in order to get dream-based guidance for a tough decision).

One of the implications of ancestral roles is the care with which burial of a head of household is carried out. A (for me) nice part of this is the open invitation for anyone around to join in the memorial drinking and socializing – essentially a multi-day wake though rather more dignified than some in the West!

The introduction of Christianity was superficially quite straightforward. The supreme being is revealed as Yahweh, the God of Israel, and instead of the ancestral spirits as intercessors, we can approach God through Jesus, the Son of God. However, there are some significant differences in terms of understanding of the approachability of God, His involvement in His creation (Xhosa religion tends toward deism where God winds up the cosmic clock and then leaves it to run down on its own). The concept of eternal punishment is alien to the Xhosa, and the need for a Savior is quite new.

Some Xhosa have moved away from traditional religion altogether and become followers of Jesus. But others have simply changed their understanding of the Creator, and continue to rely on ancestral intervention. This isn’t helped by the huge number of pastors, often largely untaught, who abuse their position for sake of power or money. My guide told me that she likes to go to church, but doesn’t like the Christian Bible. When I asked why, she said that too many pastors just use it as a way to tell people what they must and mustn’t do. (I suggested that she consider the Bible on its own merits rather than through pastoral interpretations, but don’t know if her level of literacy allowed her to do so).

So what can we learn from the Xhosa about religion? Firstly, that there is value in tradition, but it cannot be the primary driver of belief. What Christianity offers is an absolute guide to God and His dealings with His people – that is, the Bible. Also, that the spiritual world is real and active, and not to be ignored in the name of visibly demonstrable “science”. The West has become so materialistic in its “enlightenment” and its Platonic philosophy that the beauty and the danger of the spiritual has been largely lost.

An interesting question remains. Who is better off – the traditionalist who believes and acts on their belief in their traditions, or the modernist who adds Christianity’s teachings to traditional beliefs and follows whichever is most convenient at the time? Ultimately religion in the best sense isn’t about what practices are followed (whether traditional or more modern, native or Christian) but the character that is formed by the Spirit of Christ resting in them. (As a Christian I can’t see it any other way). So in a way the answer to my question is that it doesn’t matter – both fall short. But I think I’d take the honest traditionalist any day.

Learning from amaXhosa - the Family Home

We need to belong. It’s how we were created, and the need to belong drives many of our actions and decisions. Many believe that Western culture has a crisis of belonging. This is despite the teaching of Christianity, that we are made to belong to God and to one another, and that belonging takes place within the context of family and Christian community.

Western culture has brought many great things to humanity. But it has also weakened and fragmented the value of family. I have three daughters. They live 500, 2000 and 5000 miles away. Even though we’re all close, we see so little of one another that we can’t be involved in one another’s daily lives. For each of us, home is where we live rather than where our family is.

For the amaXhosa – the Xhosa people – home is the physical location where grandparents, parents, and new generations live. But home is more than location – it is somewhere to return to, a place of refuge, of acceptance, of belonging.

The highlight of my stay in South Africa was a couple of days spent living in Bulungula, a traditional Xhosa village on the beautiful Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. This village of 1,200 people, one of a cluster of villages with a population of 6,000, is remote, hard to get to, and very poor. The only electricity comes from one solar panel per house – enough to power a single light bulb, or to charge a cell phone, but not both!

Most of the Xhosa houses are thatched round huts called rondavels (Afrikaans). They are round for both practical and spiritual reasons that I’ll explain in a later blog. They also build rectangular common buildings but rondavels predominate. 

A typical home consists of one or more buildings, a kraal for keeping animals overnight, an outhouse, the grave of the oldest ancestor, a small-holding garden, and space for cooking, storing wood, etc.

During my stay in Bulungula, I was given an in-depth introduction to the life of women in the village (called “Woman Power”!) Men were encouraged to join this educational activity as well as women, and the day revolved around the cooking of lunch – more on that in a later blog.

My Woman Power guide was a 25-year old unmarried woman who provided extensive detail on tribal and village customs and traditions. She also asked me many questions about my culture, and was often surprised by the answers. In particular we seemed to come back often to the concept of home – the place to which we turn and return when in need.

For example, we talked about what happens when a child is born outside marriage and without an involved father. Normally, after marriage a woman will move to her husband’s home. He will likely build a new rondavel for his new family, requesting additional land from the village headman if necessary. The new wife is now part of the team of women who look after the old people, the children and the men of the extended family. But it is not uncommon for a woman, or even a teenage girl, to have a child without the prospect of marriage. While this is considered very undesirable, it is a given that the mother will remain with her birth family, and be accepted and looked after. Later, marriage may occur and she will take her child and move to the husband’s home.

In Western cultures, there is no such security. Certainly, there are many times when a child born without an active father will be accepted by its grandparents and allowed to live with them and its mother. But so often this is either not an option or is not offered. Mother and child must often be separated because she would not be able to provide materially and/or emotionally. The insecurity and socio-economic challenges that result are both common and terribly damaging.

For Westerners, there are many Xhosa family traditions that are surprising or disturbing. The power that men have over women in this patriarchal and patrilinear society is gradually diminishing, even in the most traditional of villages. (My guide decided not to get married because “no man is going to tell me I can’t go out to work”). But still a woman’s life is very hard and arguably much harder than that of a man. The practice of lobola, in which a man pays 10 cows for a wife (currently about $7,000 US – a fortune for this community), may seem rather barbaric. But the price is not for purchase of a slave, but recompense for the five children the wife is expected to bear him. Not much better perhaps, but at least it means that girl children are very valuable to a family!

Still, I felt the importance of belonging to the family and the village, the relative contentment with little when this sense of belonging exists. Belonging is so important that most crime can be dealt with by the village headman because being censured by the village hurts so much more than a nameless, faceless civil or criminal court. (I remember visiting China in the early 1980’s before Westernization, and discovering there was very little crime because people could not survive being ostracized by their communities). More serious crimes are still referred to the police however, and at least in the case of Bulungula the relationship between village headmen and police is very good.

What can we learn? Certainly not that we should turn back the clock and become more patriarchal again. But treasuring of family relationships, making the home a refuge, and actively creating and investing in places to belong – these should all be high priorities for us.

Who Cares What Language I Speak?

America has one official language, and many if not most people will say that if you come to America you should learn to speak English. Canada has two, with the politically strong Quebec province managing in 1969 to add French. In Britain, there is one official language, but increasingly there is pressure to treat Welsh, Gaelic and even Cornish as being of equal value to English.

In South Africa there are 11 – yes eleven – official languages. Afrikaans and English are probably the most widely spoken. But there are more native Zulu speakers than these two combined, and more native Xhosa speakers than either “white” language. Most South Africans functionally speak at least two languages.

Chapter 1 Section 6 of the Constitution of South Africa provides for these official languages. The don’t cover all the native languages of the country, but close to 98% speak one of them as their own. The Constitution was created after the end of apartheid, and signed into law by Nelson Mandela in 1996. It reflects his vision of a truly multi-cultural, equal society.

When Afrikaner leaders first spoke to Mandela, even during his 27-year imprisonment, they were shocked and disarmed to be spoken to in Afrikaans. He first learned it so that he could talk to his prison guards. He was a native Xhosa speaker from the Eastern Cape, but he learned to speak in several other languages. Why? This is what he said:

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. (Nelson Mandela)

For those of us who speak the world’s most universal language, I think it is difficult to understand why this is so important. We can make ourselves understand pretty much anywhere in the world. So why bother to learn French, or Hindi, or Portuguese when we visit France or India or Brazil? For Mandela, we forfeit the ability to speak to heart of others.

For those who grew up speaking a localized language, it is a different story. They are expected to learn a second language, in which they are less fluent, less comfortable and which hides an aspect of who they are. If the world had listened to Mandela, difficult though most of us find it to learn additional languages, how different would things be? If only white and colored South Africans had listened! Because while South Africa has 11 official languages, it does not have the unity the should have come from this recognition and appreciation.

A common widely-spoken language is admittedly useful for trade and cross-cultural communication. In 1945, when Indonesia became independent, Bahasa Indonesia became the country’s official language in opposition to the colonial Dutch language. The first president Sukarno, and his successor Suharto, both understood that by insisting that all trade, government, media, education and really all aspects of life be conducted in Bahasa Indonesia. This, despite the fact that almost nobody spoke it (a recently created simplified dialect of Malay), but instead one of at least 700 other languages. This is perhaps a consequence of Indonesia being a rather arbitrary collection of over 3,000 inhabited islands. While it was very convenient to have a common language, and created at least a form of national identity, I wonder whether this was more than superficial. Most Indonesians even today speak their native language in addition – they live two lives: an official Indonesian one, and the one in which they are identified with their own ancestral tribe.

South Africa is similar. In all the cities, most people speak at least some English, often in addition to Afrikaans, the de facto official language of apartheid (and the main language spoken by Western and Northern whites and coloreds). But when I visited the remote Xhosa village of Bulungula (more on that in a later post) very few people spoke more than a few words of either language. They may have identified as South African, but much more they are Xhosa, and proud of their traditions, their values and their language. I’m sure it is the same in rural Zulu villages in KwaZulu-Natal and in other cultural clusters. But it means they are largely isolated from the nation South Africa.

If South Africa is going to truly become a nation in which all its citizens take pride, then it will need to recognize the value of all its languages.

And what about us? Do we make a Mexican immigrant into a true American by insisting on the use of only English in the classroom or the marketplace? Is this the welcome promised by the US Constitution? Or are we creating little enclaves – communities – of different cultures that are like islands within the great sea of America. I would ask the same question of Britain, Australia, France and many other countries.

The apartheid Bantu Authorities Act, and several others after it, established ten “homelands” or bantustans to which members of particular racial groups were to be transported. They were to have partial “independence” (which meant they had a governor, usually white, who supposedly looked after their affairs on behalf of the National Party government).

The original goal was that each of the bantustans would become fully independent, and some actually did, including Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho. But since they were given inferior and too little land, with most of the land being kept for the minority white and colored groups, these were bound to be suppressed and poor nations. What resulted was a series of underserved, undereducated and underprovided for groups of millions of people – second-class South Africans. While this has changed to a degree since the ANC came to power, it still has a very long way to go.

It could be argued that an unintended consequence of the ANC’s decision to adopt all the major languages as “official” resulted to some degree in consolidation of the bantustan mentality, rather than its dismantling. I’m not sure what the right balance is. Native languages have great value in preserving the beauty and values of the underlying culture. But they can also fragment the nation as a whole.

America isn’t quite so crass about it as the apartheid era National Party. But isn’t there at least a flavor of it here? Yes, power is growing in some of these communities (e.g. Chinatown in San Francisco) but generally levels of poverty are significantly worse in ethnic areas.

Could it be that a big contributor to world discord is the arrogance of us native English speakers (and to a lesser extent the other “global” languages like French, Spanish and Chinese), assuming the superiority and rightful universality of our language.

What is a South African?

Part of the richness, and part of the challenge, is that South Africa is made up from such a broad range of people groups.

“I believe in Nelson Mandela’s vision. I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King….that all people are equal. A world governed by such principles is possible and…we have no choice but to move forward.” (Barack Obama)

To Nelson Mandela, being South African wasn’t about being white, or black, or colored. It wasn’t about being rich or poor, modern or traditional. It was about embracing all of these things and taking pride in being a part of this rich rainbow of a nation.

But so much of South Africa’s history has denied this beautiful recognition of God’s amazing creation of billions of unique people throughout human history and before. Inter-tribal conflicts, racial domination, colonialism and apartheid have all worked against God’s great human tapestry. South Africa is a microcosm of how this has occurred throughout the world.

In a previous blog I asked how it could be that such a rich nation could be so dysfunctional. The answer is, I think, most simply explained as misuse of power. Of course, this is at the heart of so much – it is pride, the original sin. It is greed, hate, sexual abuse, oppression of all kinds. And South Africa has seen it all for millennia.

It is helpful to look at the major cultural layers that make up modern South Africa. So I want to tell you a story.

Preface – Prehistory. (if you have a problem with evolution, you may want to skip this bit!) In 1924 limestone workers on the Cape coast discovered what turned out to be the skull of the so-called Taung Child, a specimen of Australopithecus africanus which is thought by many to be a direct ancestor of humans. (This story and many related to it are told in the wonderfully presented Cradle of Civilization just outside Johannesburg). For many archeologists, and based on fossil evidence to date, Southern Africa is where what we know of as humanity emerged. (For me this is not inconsistent with the Biblical creation story, which leaves out all sorts of details not relevant to the purpose of the book. But you may disagree and we’ll still be friends!)

Chapter 1 – Hunter-gatherers. Once upon a time, about 100,000 years ago, there came from the north a migration of small middle stone-age humans mostly known now as San or bushmen (though they had no name for themselves since there was nobody else around to tell it to!) They were nomadic hunter-gatherers, using primitive tools to create shelters, kill and skin game, and generally survive. But they were also artists, and responsible for the first known artistic endeavors, including the beautiful kuku shown here. When we say “primitive” we clearly don’t mean backward or inept! A few of these works still survive in caves in the Kalahari Basin, as well as in Botswana.

The San lived quite happily with their animals and their small family groups for close to 100,000 years, which by American standard is quite a long time.

Chapter 2 - Herders. All was peaceful in the Kalahari until around the time of Christ another set of migrants arrived in the Kalahari from their original home in Botswana. They are known as the Khoikhoi people or, as the Dutch called them, the Hottentots. (This derogatory nickname came from the clicks in their language that Europeans have a hard time understanding). The Khoikhoi (literally “men of men”) weren’t like the San. Rather than hunt their food, they grew it. They herded sheep, goats and cattle, which overran the lands with their large settlements. And because the Khoikhoi felt they owned their cattle, they took exception to San people hunting and gathering their meat! It was easier for the Khoikhoi to thrive, and so they mostly absorbed the San people. In fact the two groups together are known as Khoisan (really the name of the merged languages).

This was a gradual absorption and was never quite completed. There are small groups of indigenous San still living in some parts of southern Africa, especially Botswana. But for South Africa there are very few if any left in the Kalahari. They are true people of the land, with rich customs and deep humanity. But there seems to be no place for them in “modern civilization”.

Chapter 3 – Bantu Invasion. The Khoisan continued to occupy the western portion of South Africa until the arrival of the first Europeans. But a couple of hundred years after the Khoikhoi arrived, a different migration reached this southernmost part of the world. This migration was on a scale that humanity had never before experienced. The Bantu expansion swept across the whole of Africa in the couple of millennia before Christ, ending up in the early centuries of the Christian era in South Africa.

The Bantu came and took over all the nice parts of town. One group, today's Nguni peoples - the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, and Ndebele - liked the Eastern coastal areas. The Sotho-Tswana peoples (Tswana, Pedi, and Sotho) settled in the interior on the plateau known as the Highveld. And today's Venda, Lemba, and Tsonga peoples set up shop in the north-east. They started to encroach upon Khoisan lands and moved them out of their fertile lands into the more arid north of the country. They did absorb some of the Khoisan culture, including the clicks in their language (which you can still hear particularly in Zulu and Xhosa). Why have I told you all this? South Africa isn’t just white and the rest. It isn’t even just white, black, colored and Indian. Black covers a whole rainbow. And as we’ll see, even white includes a couple of rainbow bands.

Interlude – Enter the Europeans. Then exit quickly. In 1488 Bartholomeu Dias explored the South African coastline. And a few years later, a whole Portuguese fleet sailed right up the eastern coast. But apparently they didn’t see anything much to shout about. So they left.

Chapter 4 – Enter the Europeans – For Real. Now we’re starting to get to the bits they covered in your history books. Africa couldn’t be left out because it impacted history so significantly. After all we know that history is really just about Europe (with a little bit about America in the epilogue).

In the 17^th century, the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC in Dutch – don’t ask) needed a supply station for its trading ships. And so was invented Cape Town. The Khoisan had lots of meat, and the Bantu had lots of meat, and the Dutch were most certainly not vegetarians. So they traded (vegetables too). The VOC didn’t plan on colonizing – just trading, which they did until the Khoisan decided not to play any more. So the VOC imported Dutch farmers to grow crops and herd livestock. These were the so-called boers (Dutch for farmers). The more that arrived, the more land they needed, and the rest is history – ugly, bloody history.

Chapter 5 – Cape Malay and Colored. The Dutch had no problem with slavery at that time. Curiously, though, they decided not to make slaves of the Khoisan and instead imported them from various Dutch colonies, but particularly from Indonesia. This was the beginning of the Cape Malay communities in South Africa (perhaps because it’s easier to say than Cape Indonesian?) Since there weren’t enough of the right kind of slaves, the white settlers started to indenture Khoisan workers (but this wasn’t slavery, honest!) Very soon after this, masters and slaves and indentured servants started to have babies together. In very large numbers. This was the beginning of the extremely varied groups of people who are collectively known today as Colored. And they all spoke a variant of Dutch, influenced by Khoisan and Malay languages, and ultimately renamed as Afrikaans. In case you wondered.

Chapter 6 – Late to the Party. So the Dutch had everything to themselves, and had established some kind of peaceful co-existence with the black and colored previous inhabitants of South Africa. It was hardly an equal partnership, but it worked (if you had white skin). And then Britain realized that it needed to protect its own trade routes from the French so it seized the Cape from the Dutch (French allies at the time).  Kind of a clumsy way to gate-crash a party, but it worked and British influence is still stronger in the Western Cape province than anywhere else in South Africa except around the old Natal (see next chapter)!

The history of relations between the Dutch and the British is quite well documented, although it really was much messier than the school texts make it sound. Mostly all we hear about are the Anglo-Boer wars – also referred to as the South African wars, although these were just two of many wars and isolated battles that peppered the 18^th and 19^th centuries throughout South Africa.

White vs white, black vs white, black vs black – they all happened with tragic results. There was certainly a clash between Dutch protectiveness and expansionism, and British hunger for gold and diamonds. But also there was the emergence of a dominant Zulu tribe that turned on everyone else. Remember Shaka Zulu. Yes, he started it. And there were lots more attempts by one group to exert power over another.

Chapter 7 – Last to the Party. So our story of what makes up a South African has nearly finished. But there is one element missing – the Indians. How on earth did they get into the mix? Actually they first started to arrive in Chapter 5 – slaves introduced by the Dutch. But far greater numbers came at the end of the 19^th century, in Natal which the British had pretty much taken over. For some reason the Zulu refused to be Britain’s laborers and mineworkers, so a few Indians – 150,000 of them actually – were brought in to do the dirty work instead. In fact when Mahatma Gandhi arrived in 1893, Indians outnumbered whites in Natal. But that’s a whole different story for another time.

Epilogue – Put All Ingredients in and Mix Well. Of course, they didn’t mix very well. You know at least the basics of apartheid (literally “separateness”, a doctrine of the Afrikaner government designed to keep non-whites under control). This isn’t the place to go into detail. But by this time races and traditions had been shunted and segregated and oppressed so much that being South African had no meaning at all.

Then came Nelson Mandela with his vision of a united, everybody-equal South Africa. Then came Desmond Tutu with his “rainbow nation”. But it was never going to be that easy or that quick. Going into the 1994 elections, the ANC promised all sorts of impossible things to get elected. That wasn’t all bad. But now, 24 years later, not much has been accomplished. Given all the complexity of South Africa’s migrations, invasions and power struggles, it’s hardly surprising is it?

The current situation is the subject of my next blog post. Stay tuned!

Shouldn't Great Beauty Be Enough?

There are few places in the world with more natural beauty than South Africa. New Zealand perhaps? Or on a smaller scale Kauai or Yosemite? Soaring mountains, rivers (lots of them), lakes. Rolling grassy hills. Stark and rugged desert. Forests, two oceans and glorious beaches. God’s creativity really worked overtime on this country!

What gets me is the variety, even in what I saw in a just couple of weeks – even in my first couple of days. It is hardly surprising that the region around Cape Town, and particularly Table Mountain, is a place everyone wants go. In fact Table Mountain is one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

Why is South Africa so naturally rich? Apparently, it is very old, and has gone through pretty much all the earth’s geological shifts, tectonic arching, breaking and the formation of crevasses. The resulting outbreak of volcanoes, depressions, the deposition of gravel and wind and water erosion have formed a tremendously varied geological profile of the land. This is also the reason for the vast mineral resources South Africa possesses.  

This profile, and the associated climatic variation, perhaps helps to explain the amazing range of wildlife in South Africa: more than 300 mammal species, 500 bird species, 100 kinds of reptiles and countless insects. And then there are the 20,000+ plants (about 10% of all plants on earth), with a particular concentration around the Cape. Did I mention that the area around Cape Town is really worth a visit?

There are 150+ varieties of the flowering genus protea, mostly native only in South Africa and the national flower. Named by Carl Linneus after the Greek god Proteus, who could change shape at will. And there just seem to be so many shapes they can take! See here for a few beautiful examples. The protea represents change and hope for South Africans, and is the nickname taken by the national cricket teams. Change and hope. Yes!

I saw so much else: the Overberg, the great South African Winelands with countryside that reminds me of Napa and Sonoma (and rivals them in quality of wine), and the stunningly beautiful Garden Route – woods, forests, hills, mountains, and incredible varied wildlife and flora. And then the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape.

Freeways are usually not the best way to see what a country has to offer in the way of natural beauty (though I do enjoy driving I-5 north through Shasta and the Siskiyou Mountains). But the South African N-2, its main North-South highway, is stunning. Mind you, since I used Google Maps quite a bit, I found myself leaving the N-2 and driving unpaved roads on what was nominally a shorter route. It certainly wasn’t quicker! But this gave me some other kinds of scenery – sometimes bleaker, sometimes greener, more wooded, and lots of rivers. (One of the best detours from the N-2 is between George and Knysna on the old pre-N2 road now called the Seven Passes Route. If you have the chance, do it – but take your time for the sake of your sanity and your vehicle!)

All this natural wealth, and yet South Africans struggle with unity, pride and identity. It’s like the beautiful young woman who is bright and musically gifted, admired and envied by everyone else, but full of self-doubt and even self-loathing. For those of us outside the country it makes no sense at all. But for South Africans it isn’t that simple. More on that in future blogs.

South Africa – a Country of Contradictions

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply... For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. (Alan Paton, author)

South Africa has it all: incredible natural beauty, diverse wildlife, extraordinary mineral wealth, and wonderful people of many races.

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South Africa should be full of hope, not despair; pride not shame; love not hate.

South Africa is full of problems: unemployment, disease, economic struggles, violence, and racial tensions.

I visited recently to try to understand this contradiction just a little. I fell in love with the country – how could anyone not? But I was also frustrated by the sense that this is a country that falls far, far short of its potential for its people, the continent of Africa and the world as a whole. There is so much to learn from South Africa – both positive and negative.

We all belong to South Africa, and South Africa belongs to us all. (Nelson Mandela’s law partner, Oliver Tambo)

This is the first of a series of blog posts in which I am recording my impressions from this short visit, and the research that surrounded it.

South Africa is described as the “Rainbow Nation” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s vision) and so it should be. But as yet, 24 years after the first democratic election, I’m not sure the label sticks.

In 1994, all of South Africa went to the polls and elected the African National Policy, headed by the great man himself, Nelson Mandela, to lead them. Hope and expectations were high. The ANC promised economic and social justice and prosperity for all South Africans. Now, 24 years later, nobody would claim that these ideals have been attained.

It was always going to be difficult. Hundreds of years of colonial and inter-tribal conflict had done great damage. Even ANC supporters are disappointed with how it has turned out. The ANC is struggling to maintain enough of a base to keep some kind of majority in next year’s elections, so the old promises are being rolled out again. But the country needs far more than promises. Nelson Mandela’s vision was of a unified country, working together to use all its advantages to benefit every single South African – white, colored, Indian or black. If only he could have cloned himself!

Still, the potential is there. It is palpable in the laid back and diverse city of Cape Town. It pulsates in the busy, not always comfortable, city of Johannesburg and Soweto. It is more peacefully evident in a Xhosa or Zulu village. It can’t be escaped in the extraordinary natural beauty of a drive up the Garden Route of the Western Cape, or in the Kwa-Zulu Natal and Eastern Cape Wild Coast.

The very diversity of the wild life in South Africa seems like a metaphor for the country’s human diversity.

Visit if you can – I promise you won’t be disappointed. But don’t expect to solve any problems. It will take more than an individual – even one like Nelson Mandela. He couldn’t have said it any better:

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.

It will take the whole country, perhaps the whole world. It will take time, perhaps several generations. But it is worth it – the world would be so much the richer for a healthy South Africa. Pray for her, and for her people. The Xhosa song Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was the cry of hope that formed the heart of the fight against apartheid – God Bless Africa!)

Xhosa	English
Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika Maluphakanyis' uphondo lwayo Yiva imithandazo yethu Nkosi sikelela, Thina lusapho lwayo Chorus Yehla Moya, Yehla Moya, Yehla Moya Oyingcwele	Lord, bless Africa May her Spirit be lifted high Hear Thou our prayers And bless us. Chorus Descend, O Spirit Descend, O Holy Spirit

Wikipedia article

One more thing - huge thanks to Stephen Abelsohn stephengo2southafrica.com / www.go2southafrica.com) who custom-designed and arranged this most amazing trip.

Stay tuned for a little more depth on some of the colors of South Africa!