South Africa/ United States Compared

WARNING: THIS ENTRY IS A BIT POLITICAL.

 We arrived safely this morning and after a delightful lunch of impala burger and wandering around, we arrIved at the Apartheid Museum.  

As you might imagine, it was powerful and though provoking and all of those other things that you expect in a museum dedicated to man’s inhumanity to man.  I was inspired by the exhibit on Nelson Mandela, having read his autobiography.  I was interested in other important leaders and their impact on the struggle.  But there were two unexpected parallels that have gotten me thinking.  When apartheid was introduced in 1948, it was through a party that didn’t get a majority of votes and was mostly rural.  One of it’s stated goals were to keep the undesirable criminal element far away from the “good citizenry”. Another was to ensure the white citenzry got enough jobs.  Starting to sound familiar, yet?  Trump fits the bill in all of these categories and listening to some of the rhetoric from the supporters of the system of apartheid sounds like some of the things I hear at Trump rallies.  I’m not saying that we are headed for apartheid, but the parallels, such as income equality and exploitation of the working class, run deep.  

A second parallel that I found just as jarring were the parallels between apartheid and the Jim Crow/ pre-Civil Rights Era.  The purveyors of both types of racism chose to make the other side less human and inferior.  The blacks in America and Blacks/coloreds in South Africa “need”the guidance and help of white people and “enjoy” the protection they are getting.  Right.....

But the question I am pondering is if we really finished the process with our Civil Rights movement.  The South Africans had to go through the Truth and Reconciliation process with all of its struggles and the United States just passed laws and never forced people to confront and admit to what they did.  With the recent resurgence of racism and nationalism, I wonder if we skipped an important step. Did we just force it underground and make it fester and grow?  Do we need to go back and try again?  

We live in strange times.  Is South Africa providing a blueprint for how to get our country back on track?