RE: On Mandela Day: things that shaped this South African
Thank you, @lynncoyle for that magnificent pencil sketch of Madiba - I will save it and store it for another time. It really does capture the man.
Thank you, too for your kind words about this post - much appreciated.
You say,
It's only natural that parents keep sordid details away from children, but isn't it interesting how as adults, we begin to connect the dots and realize what life is really like?!
One of the macabre successes of apartheid is that a large proportion of the white population did not know and certainly elected not to know. They might have known about the poor conditions and the structural separateness, but they didn’t really know the deeply evil suppression of thought that went on. Nor were they really aware that there were different types and qualities of education for the different race groups. I kid you not. Then there was the “homeland” system which really was just a way of keeping folk in the country and not developing.
The news was controlled, and the information put out, even more so. I often wonder how different things might have been had we had the Internet and social media in those days. I do know that it was the work of journalists who had international connections that did much to get the news of 1976 and 1986 as well as intervening events into the public eye, and which resulted in sanctions. Yes, sanctions did damage, but it was because the country was not just on the verge of a imploding (there was already a low level civil war), but of bankruptcy, that negotiations began with Mandela – still in prison.
I hate saying this, but apartheid was enormously successful and we really do still live with its legacy in so many ways today.
As I was reading this, especially where you say that apartheid was an enormous success (which I totally get what you're saying by the way!!), it reminded me of how Hitler and the holocaust was the same kind of success. Calculated, secretive, propagandized and government run. That's a very difficult thing to beat. But I too wonder if social media had been around, how different it all might have been.
So so sad to say the least!
On a happier note, I'm so glad you liked the drawing. This guy, @unyimeetuk is an amazing artist!
You know, @lynncoyle1, when I remark to South Africans about the "success of apartheid, most just don't get it. Consequently when I said it here, it was with a bit of trepidation. The analogy with Hitler is apt. And it's similar to what led to the genocide in Rwanda and in the Serb-croat conflict. What people do to each other! Incomprehensible.
Man's inhumanity to man. I've never understood it either!