South Africa: Hope for a Continent?
By
Fr. Kevin E. Mackin, OFM
Africa,
home to more than 700 million people, is at a crossroads. Life is hard
for many, infrastructures are unreliable. Multitudes suffer from hunger,
violence, a deteriorating educational system, a high child mortality rate, and
rampant HIV/AIDS, to name but a few problems. Multinational companies
have continued to cover up payments to African government officials; G8
governments provide tax havens for them and ignore the ever increasing supply
of weapons to war-torn areas.
The
continent desperately needs foreign aid and debt relief, if only to upgrade
health and educational systems and improve infrastructures that will enable
these countries to trade successfully in the future.
 |
| Nelson Mandela |
In
light of the many challenges in Africa, and thanks to a collection of frequent
flyer miles, I decided in the summer of 2004 to explore the Franciscan presence
in South Africa, where over 40 million people live in a territory roughly the
size of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico combined. They assess their color
as around 30 million blacks from such tribes as the Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi; 4
million colored; 1 million Asians; and 5.5 million whites.
Catholics
represent approximately 7% of the total South African population.
On
arriving in Johannesburg, I went directly to the Franciscan house of formation
in Waterkloof, a suburb of Pretoria (the nation’s administrative capital city),
and I met a most hospitable community of simply and solemnly professed friars,
black and white.
The
Franciscan house is adjacent to the Portiuncula Chapel and Santa Sophia
Institute for Catholic Education. On the same street is the Seminary of St.
John Vianney, where Franciscan and diocesan students study for ordained
priesthood.
This
entire complex is a tribute to a remarkable Irish Catholic friar by the name of
Fergus Barrett, the Seminary’s first Rector and a prime mover in gathering all
the Friars Minor in South Africa into the Province of Our Lady Queen of Peace.
Fr.
Alexander Kerrigan, a distinguished biblical scholar, is buried in a friars’
plot not far from Pretoria.
St.
Francis House of Studies for Philosophy in Wingate Park, another suburb of
Pretoria, includes a mosaic of students from South Africa, Mozambique,
Tanzania, the Congo and Kenya. I was especially pleased to hear how
grateful many people were for Charles Steen, a friar classmate of mine, who
served admirably well as pastor of St. Pius X parish in Waterkloof.
I
studied the photos in the Apartheid Museum that described the upheavals in the
1960s through the 1980s, and I will always remember the words etched in the
granite entranceway to this Museum: “Equality, Reconciliation, Diversity,
Democracy and Responsibility.”
Regina
Mundi Church, staffed by Oblates of Mary Immaculate, became a rendezvous in
Soweto (South-west-township) in the 1970s for the resistance movement. On
my later journey, I stood where Nelson Mandela spoke in the Regina Mundi
Church.
World
famous Kruger National Park was impressive; the wildlife sanctuary includes the
“big five” game animals (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, rhinoceros), though
seeing all of them would have required more stealth than I had time for.
I
flew on to Cape Town, which features the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, Lion’s
Head, and a cable
car to the top of Table Mountain for a stunning panoramic
view of the city. In the city, en route to St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral,
I saw thousands of shanties where refugees from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania,
Botswana and the Congo barely eke out an existence.
 |
| Capetown |
At
the Cape of Good Hope (spectacular scenery enroute), I stopped into St.
George’s Anglican Cathedral, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1986, rallied people against apartheid and for freedom. I
also appreciated the Malay culture of Signal Hill; the Dutch East India Company
initially brought many Malaysians — often Muslims from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and
India — to the Cape as artisans or slaves.
The
Cape is also recognized for its winelands.
Perhaps
the most moving experience for me was a visit to Robben Island, where in 1963,
the South African government condemned Nelson Mandela and seven others to life
imprisonment. These prisoners worked in a quarry for at least six hours a
day, ate little, and slept on a cold floor. That Nelson Mandela survived
for 26 years is remarkable; that he asked all Africans to seek reconciliation
and not vengeance is even more remarkable.
Concelebrating
a liturgy at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Africa Day, I experienced a high-spirited
Catholic community caught up in music, personal testimonies and ritual.
In
contrast, I reflected on the spiritual origins of “modern South Africa”; John
Calvin’s pessimistic understanding of human nature shaped the vision of the
early Dutch settlers there. Many were biblical fundamentalists and were
openly antagonistic to Catholics.
Although
the Portuguese had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the late 15th century, on their voyages to the East Indies, they never created
a Catholic presence. And the Dutch made sure there wouldn’t be one.
(only in 1951 were four Catholic archdioceses created in South Africa:
Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria)
Early
Dutch settlers saw themselves as an embattled minority surrounded by hostile
forces, initially the black majority, and later, the British. This “siege
mentality” eventually saw the formation of three Afrikaner Reformed Churches,
one more rigid than the other. They became, in varying degrees, openly
racist and exclusively white.
After
the arrival of the French Huguenots in 1688 at the Cape, the Dutch settlers
began to push toward the east and north and clashed with the blacks over land
and water in a series of so-called “frontier wars.”
The
British seized the Cape in 1795. The British were generally Anglican or
Methodist and also antagonistic to Catholics. As more and more British settlers
arrived in the 19th century, they fought with the Dutch (so-called
Voortrekkers or Boers) and forced them to migrate even farther north and east.
The
Dutch, who saw slaves as essential to their farming success in South Africa,
also moved north and east to protest the British abolition of slavery in the
Cape Colony. In the east, they fought the Zulus and founded the short-lived
Republic of Natal. In the north, the Dutch created two independent
republics for Afrikaners: Transvaal (Paul Kruger was Transvaal’s most
celebrated president) and the Orange Free State.
Meantime,
the British created their own government for whites in the Cape Colony.
The
discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1871 and gold in Johannesburg in 1886 led
to a series of conflicts between the British and Dutch that culminated in the
South African (Boer) War of 1899-1902. Cecil John Rhodes, prime minister
of the Cape Colony since 1890, was an instigator of this war which in many ways
foreshadowed WWI . Winston Churchill first came to the attention of the
British public as a correspondent in this war. The British won the war, and
created in 1910 the Union of South Africa within the Commonwealth.
Even
with the creation of the Union, blacks continued to be denied basic civil
rights. Afrikaners rallied around the Nationalist party (NP). In
1948, when the party came to power, apartheid (a term meaning “separateness”
used by Jan Smuts, twice elected South Africa’s prime minister) became
law. The government began implementing stricter racial segregation
policies, and the system lasted for 42 years.
Skin
color dictated where people were allowed to live, work and even be buried.
It determined where children were taught and influenced the quality of their
education. In short, apartheid basically stripped black South Africans of their
basic human rights.
Blacks
rallied around the South African Native National Congress (later known as the
ANC). There were decades of domestic protests: e.g. pass book burnings in
Sharpeville in 1960, followed by the Soweto riots in 1976, and also
international sanctions and boycotts.
In
1990, President de Klerk, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (as was Nelson
Mandela), declared that apartheid had failed, and lifted the bans on the ANC
and other political groups. Mandela was released from prison; and the
last apartheid laws were abolished. A period of political instability
ensued during which more South Africans died from political violence than in
the preceding 42 years.
A
long series of negotiations led to a new constitution, and South Africa became
a non-racial parliamentary democratic state. On March 10, 1994, Nelson
Mandela was sworn in as president. He concentrated on national
reconciliation, striving to forge a single South African identity.
In
1999, Thabo Mbeki was elected president. He is noted for heading the
formation of the African Union and its economic development program. He
has had influential roles in peace treaties in nearby countries. And he
defines poverty as an ultimate enemy.
Today
South Africa has the continent’s most advanced and developed economy.
Manufacturing, financial services, mining and insurance are its major industries.
Over
40 million people inhabit this diverse land of blue skies, wildlife parks,
wilderness areas, beaches and vineyards. Perhaps this is why the Protea,
named after the Greek god Proteus which takes so many forms of beauty, is the
national flower. The stark contrasts — from the lively stock exchange and
fashionable shops of greater Johannesburg, to poor townships such as Soweto, to
the historic buildings in the legislative capital of Cape Town, to the
awe-inspiring scenic drives on the Peninsula — reflect the starker contrasts
among the histories of its people.
South
Africans have traveled a long and rough road to freedom. In the past few
decades, thanks to gifted leaders focused on truth and conciliation, they have
become a mix of cultures and people striving to create a bright future for
their children.
