Day 20:

In our previous blog, we took a quick tour of Livingstone, Zambia on our way to the Livingstone airport. We flew from Zambia back to Johannesburg for a brief stop-over before heading on to India. Johannesburg is the biggest city in South Africa. It is a city of sharp contrasts between natural beauty, immense wealth and staggering poverty. We didn’t have much time to dig into the city too much--just an evening and a day.

As soon as we got settled in our hotel (right at the airport for convenience for our early flight on day 22), we booked a car to take us downtown. As I alluded to in our previous post, there was something super-important we needed to do. You see, we have a bit of a collection that we add to every chance we get when we travel. It is super-American, at least for our age-bracket. Have you figured it out yet? Something American that can be found here-and-there around the world? Something we can collect when we travel?

Hard Rock Café T-shirts. We have maybe 20 of them apiece from various cities in America and around the world. As of the time that I am starting this blog, add another five including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Soweto (a suburban city of Johannesburg and the home of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu), New Delhi and Bangkok.

The Hard Rock Café in Johannesburg is in Nelson Mandela Square in the heart of downtown. We had a bite to eat, bought our T-shirts and snapped a few pictures before heading back to the hotel where we booked a tour for the following day from the same company.

Day 21:

Our tour driver, Nicholas, was a soft-spoken fellow who was new at the job. He spent the previous evening refreshing his memory on key points for our tour and did a fantastic job. The plan for the day was to visit Pretoria and then Soweto to the home of Nelson Mandela. We rode from our hotel about an hour north to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. On the drive we learned about “The Exodus” or “The Great Trek”. You may recall reading in your history class about the Boer Wars.

The Dutch (primarily though other countries were also represented by the moniker, Boers) and the British were vying for control of South Africa—for diamonds and gold primarily. The Dutch originally controlled Cape Town. The British came in and took over the Southern Cape area. Many/most of the Dutch decided to move further inland rather than submit to British rule. Thus, were born the Voortrekkers, the pioneers. You may also recall from our Garden Route blog that we stayed in Swellendam. That was a city founded as part of The Great Trek.

Through arduous struggles, and a great deal of destruction wrought on the Zulus and other local tribes, the Dutch settlers made their way to a new area in the northeast of South Africa. They named their new settlement after its Dutch founder, Andries Pratorius.

We visited three main sites in Pretoria, the Union Buildings (seat of the SA government), the home of Paul Kruger, and an impressive monument/park dedicated to the Voortrekkers and their journey.

The Union Buildings represent the union between the British settlers and the Boers and the establishment of the Union of South Africa. The Union combined four separate, quasi-independent areas/colonies of South Africa into a single Union in 1910. It represented an end to the struggle that was reflected in the Boer Wars, and it represented an end to the South African Republic (the ZAR), one of the four colonies.

The union building is shaped as a semi-circular arc connecting two separate wings which represent the British and the Boers. There is an elevated statue of a horse flanked by two men holding hands above the horse. The men again represent the Brits and the Boers. The horse represents shared commerce and prosperity. Below this statue is a 9 meter/yard statue of Nelson Mandela, his arms open and raised in both celebration and welcome.

After the Union Buildings, we visited the home of Paul Kruger. Kruger was the last president of the ZAR before the new Union was founded. He is the person for whom the Kruger National Park is named. He was a prominent figure in the 1800’s South African Republic. His home is nicely preserved and staged with period furnishings.

After the British announced that they had annexed the land that formed the ZAR, Kruger went into exile. For a while he and the seat of the ZAR government resided in a railroad car. The railway that the car traveled upon was between Pretoria and a coastal city in what is now Mozambique. The railroad was built so that the Boers would not be dependent upon nor need to trade with the British.

We headed over to the Voortrekker monument at Kantoorpark. The main structure is a large brick building surrounded by a circular frieze of a wagon fort. According to Voortrekker lore, the settlers at one point formed their wagons into a circle to defend themselves from the Zulu.

When the Zulu warriors arrived, there was fog. The warriors believed the settlers were performing magic and waited to attack until the sky was clear. It was a critical mistake. The settlers had clear lines of site for their rifles when the warriors finally attacked with bows and spears. The battle was apparently decisive. They celebrate that day as a great victory. The ground floor of the monument building has a frieze that covers all the walls depicting their journey with heavy religious overtones.

We walked the frieze end-to-end and then took an elevator up to the top. The lookout over the city is breathtaking. I think Pretoria is possibly the most beautiful inland city I have ever seen. I think Seattle probably wins overall, but I am biased after so many years jaunting about the Puget Sound.

From Pretoria we headed to the house of Nelson Mandela. Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived on the same street. His house is not open for tours since he has relatives who still live there. Both Mandela and Tutu were Nobel Peace Prize winners. They lived about a block away from each other. During Mandela’s youth and his years in prison, they never met. They met and became friends after Mandela was released from prison in 1990 after 27 years.

Nelson Mandela was convicted of treason (essentially) because he wanted to bring an end to apartheid. He had close relations with Hugo Castro and the government was afraid he was promoting communism. He wasn’t, just to set the record straight. He did, however, strongly believe in social justice and equal opportunity. These are often associated with socialist ideology though socialist ideology does not own those ideals. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison rather than death which might have led to more severe unrest.

He wrote letters of encouragement to his supporters throughout his time in prison. When he was released, he promoted reconciliation rather than retribution. The far-right called him a communist. The far-left called him a collaborator (in the negative sense of somebody who consorts with an enemy). Sounds like a person in the center to me.

Mr. Mandela was elected as President Mandela, the first president of South Africa, the new post-apartheid government formed with the dissolution of the Union of South Africa. He served one term and then gave up the office for others to take on the mantle of leadership.

In the same neighborhood as Mandela’s house is a memorial to Hector Pieterson. Hector was 12 when he was shot by police on June 12, 1976, as he participated in a protest march. Afrikaans was being forced as the language of education, largely in an effort to prevent black students from learning in native languages and strengthening their sense of cultural identity. 15,000 people participated in the march. The police had been given authority to shoot on crowds that were large enough to represent a threat. 600 of his fellow marchers were killed.

A photographer took a picture of a young man, Mbuyisa, who was carrying the dead body of Hector Pieterson. Knowing the film would likely be confiscated, he rolled up the single shot and hid it, replacing it with another roll of film in his camera. Police caught up with the photographer, took the film in his camera and exposed it. The real picture was released to bring international awareness and condemnation of the actions of that day.

Note that apartheid came to an end, though the plight of the children of apartheid has not. Deeply entrenched poverty, trauma and anger pervade the Johannesburg area and many other areas within South Africa. The post-Mandela government has had issues with corruption that have exacerbated the problem. A new coalition government was elected in July in reaction to the corruption that had tainted President Mandela’s party in the years after his presidency. The coalition’s express purpose is to address the corruption and to help move to a society where opportunity is not solely the domain of the wealthy and a privileged few.

I wish them all the best success in their endeavor. South Africa is a wonderful country with many natural beauties, including its people. All the people of South Africa deserve the opportunity and the help where it is needed to break free from the chains of poverty into which they may have been born. Note that I write this as a person deeply aware of his own privilege.  

- See you all in India -