Apartheid Museum

It would be a shame to fly all the way to South Africa and experience nothing besides soccer, so today I joined my new friends Ana, Bianca, and Matt in a trip to the Apartheid Museum. The taxi driver asked me afterward whether or not I enjoyed the museum; I replied that I didn't think it was something that one really "enjoys" but it was certainly informative. The sign outside really undermined the gravitas of the topic:



Upon purchasing a ticket you are randomly assigned a "white" or "non-white" card, and the entrance is segregated as all things would have been under apartheid. It does drive home the arbitrary nature of the system, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was missing something being on the "non-whites" side.

The overwhelming feeling you get as you walk through the vast and impressive museum is a sense of "just how the f*** could this have happened?" To think that at some point, large numbers of people said "Yeah, this is a good idea, let's go with this" . . . yikes. Amid international outrage, expulsion from the Commonwealth, and economic boycotts, the white South Africans soldiered on, even attacking the ANC in countries outside of South Africa. Listening to speeches from pigs like P.W. Botha reminds one uncomfortably of George Wallace's "Segregation Now, Segregation etc." screed. It's so appalling that one can't help but feel a sense of justice when you get to the video of an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoed, sometimes known as the "architect of apartheid." That he was later successfully assassinated failed to move the author. Fortunately Nelson Mandela was a bit more forgiving than me.

There is a large exhibit on Mandela, and here you are overwhelmed by the wisdom of his drive for reconciliation. Despite the torments he suffered under the white South Africans, he was smart enough to understand that they were the ones with the money and the expertise and the country couldn't function without them. Compare this to Robert Mugabe's scorched earth retaliation policy. South Africa is hosting the World Cup; Zimbabweans are paying for bread with 100 trillion dollar bills.

There's a gift shop, but I declined to purchase the "Whites Only" coffee mug. I didn't want to have to explain the origin of the mug every time somebody was over for coffee and looked at me like some sort of monster.

Also, I got home in time to watch Germany demolish Australia. Not very good, Socceroos.