Afric~ Hope ,~~1~
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SOUTH AFRIC~ I FAITH· HOPE &LOVE ,~~1~ E:f-~ fzPn1 titL d4du ~ 1-~ /'IS'~ PtUA4L-~~ i!J'!- t VA~ Wiu-n#A<J .. · . r~ 'PA-4~~4-... ~. ~,AI-Y ~~~ ~lifU- r~, ~ (1'j StrUn-~ ~ ~~A.t.U~· ~ ~cl. ~ u/. ~~~ ;(~"F~ ~ ~~ During the summer of 1988 my wife and I spent five ' weeks in Cape Town and its environs while I served as exchange pastor of the Central Methodist Mission, a church formed by the recent merger of an all-white congregation and an essentially "coloured" congregation. Following the exchange period, we spent an additional month travelling throughout Namibia and South Africa getting to know the people and the apartheid situation in other parts of the country. We do not claim to be experts on South Africa. We did see the South Africa which tourists see and listened to those carefully screened South Africans whom the government presents to tourists as representative voices of their country. We also saw a South Africa very few tourists see and which, in fact, very few South African whites see. Most whites there never get into townships (black• "coloured" and Indian communities) and know people of color only as their servants. At my co~issioning by presbytery I was charged to learn what the conditions were in South Africa, what challenges the church of Jesus Christ was facing there, how it was responding to those challenges, and what the future looked like. I was also charged to bring back the story to our presbytery and to its churches. This diary/journal is part of my fulfillment of that charge. You may ask, why should Long Island American Presbyterians be particularly interested in South Africa? Aren't. there worse situations ~ · which should demand our attention? Burundi today and Idi Amin's Uganda yesterday are and were far worse. But when folks tell us to clean up our family, our own home front, our problems, before we stick our noses into the problems of other peoples, we must respond that South Africa is our family, our home front and its problems are ours. Why? For two reasons: · -1- First, the dominant church has, until very recently, contended that apartheid is God's will for South Africa and has convinced its members that the Bible and proper theology argue for apartheid or the separation of races. That church, the South African Dutch Re.formed Church, claims to be faithful to the same Calvinist theology as we Presbyterians hold. Their apartheid theology has rightly been declared a heresy. Second, our government, through its "constructive engagement" policy, has been tacitly working with the South African government or at least not opposing it with any strength. Furthermore, some of our business concerns and multi-nationals with home bases in our country have, through their trade with South Africa and the taxes they pay to the South African government, been helping finance the brutal, inhuman oppression of peoples of color in that country. But enough of introduction. On to the exce~pts of my diaryljournal. ********** Cape Town - July 4, 1988 We drove through Crossroads, KTC and Nyanga (black or "coloured" townships outside Cape Town), observing the shacks and deplorable conditions. Vergene took several pictures but was a bit reluctant to impose on the people. Right across the streets from shacks were government tents and even some substantial dwellings, but all were very crowded and trash was all around. There was almost no place for children to play. It was cold and there was no heat or water in many dwellings. Women were carrying huge pails of water on their heads, without steadying them with hands. Many outdoor portajohns were in evidence. Conditions were really terrible ••••• -2- While in Crossroads we saw mostly strong anti-apartheid blacks. In other townships, however, we saw graffiti both for and against the government, some of it violently attacking Tutu and the African National Congress (ANC). Our guide, Jacky Jooste, the "coloured" Associate Pastor of our church, said they might have been put there by policemen. The government seeks to divide and conquer, hiring starving, unemployed blacks to police the townships. Cape Town - July 5, 1988 At the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church I met with Jacky and a white constable who was interviewing him about his living in the Methodist manse situated in an area designated as all-white residential under the Group Areas Act. Jacky quite deliberately was late for the appointment, keeping the constable waiting. A neighbor of the manse had apparently complained. I had a sense that the constable was rather uncomfortable with me sitting in on the interview and seeing first-hand what he mus·t have known, a point of South African law which was quite detestable to me. He was all apologetic and said over and over again that he was only doing his duty. His unpleasant task was to investigate complaints about violations of the Group Areas Act. The constable wanted the confrontation to be between one "coloured" man, Jacky, and the state. Jacky wanted it to be between the Methodist Church of South Africa and the state and Jacky seemingly won this round. Cape Town - July 6, 1988 We· went to the Community House in Salt River where the Western Province Council of Churches (WPCC) is located, along with COSATU (the central labor union) and the United Democratic Front (the highly restricted loose organization of groups fighting apartheid). Community House has a guard. To get in you need a visitor's badge. It has been raided often and even bombed. (The US government's rifling of the Christie Institute and other sanctuary outfit offices is child's play compared to what seems to be standard operating procedure here.) -3- At Community House, where Leslie Liddell used to work as ecumenical director of the WPCC we first met and chatted with Charles Phillip, who described the work of the Justice and Reconciliation Department of which he is the head. They are concerned with political trials which they want to publicize to South African blacks and the rest of the world. The government tries to stretch out the trials so everybody will get tired and forget. Charles' group is also fighting capital punishment and forced removals as decreed by the Group Areas Act. They are also concerned with refugees from other countries who come to South Africa and are given a hard time by the South African government or are deported, e.g. villagers from Mozambique escaping from Renamo guerillas. They monitor justice issues and publicize what they can concerning these matters. We also met and talked with Ian McKenzie who is in charge of "Free the Children" work, seeking to get children out of detention. He says that there were·upward of 50,000 children in detention after the school demonstrations and boycotts in 1976, but due to publicity (theirs and others) and pressure from locals and overseas, the number is perhaps down to 250 at any time now. He is involved in organizing marches and demonstrations on behalf of the detained children and publicizing the situation where he can. He shares a very small office with a group opposing nuclear power and war ••••• We met and briefly talked with Glen who heads the anti-military service program. In this country there is no conscientious objection recognized. If you do not serve in the military for two years, you get six years in prison. Glen is white. Later, in August, his organization was banned. -4- We saw Veronica, working for the United Democratic Front, a restricted organization, and she gave us a copy of the Freedom Charter which was unbanned only a couple years ago. Cape Town - July 8, 1988 We visited the offices of_the Foundation for Justice and Peace which is under the leadership of Alan Boesak. A guard let us into the compound which was ringed by a high metal fence with barbed wire at the top and had a gate locked with a very special lock. Boesak has been threatened many times and once a brick was thrown through his office window just missing both his head and a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. A security police car was right there and everybody is sure the brick was thrown by a policeman. Also, his home was similarly attacked with a brick which just missed the heads of his two children. Security measures are amply justified because of state violence. Raid~ are expected at any time. Somerset West (near Cape Town) - July 10, 1988 In Somerset West the original "coloured" owners of property have been displaced by whites as, under the Group Areas Act, this better location was designated "white". The Methodist church there owns a couple blocks and coloureds still live in its houses. The state apparently does not yet want to challenge the denomination on this issue. Were the church to sell its property to anybody else, the "coloured" residents there would be removed. The Methodist Church is a "coloured" church now in anall-white area. They had to close their school which now stands empty. "Coloured" schools in the coloured areas are terribly overcrowded and teachers are out of work and have to travel to Cape Town for jobs while white schools stand empty because of the curse of colour-consciousness. -5- We saw shanty towns, somewhat better council houses, fairly good "coloured" areas and white areas. For the most part, "coloured" areas and white areas are separated by buffer zones which are industrial and successfully keep white - "coloured" contacts to a minimum. Cape Town - July 12, 1988 At the University of the Western Cape (mostly "coloured" and black) we spoke with one young man, perhaps 19, and in his second year of university education, who was arrested with 38 others for peacefully demonstrating against a change in their financial support.