More on South Africa: Politics, Polydom, Spirituality, Sexuality
I'm afraid that my previous couple of entries might give the impression that I don't like South Africa. This isn't true. This is a fascinating, beautiful, hopeful and mind-boggling country. I'm happy to be here, and I want to come back soon.
So far, the most memorable experience has been dinner with some polyfolk in the suburbs of Cape Town. They may not have LiveJournals, but otherwise they'd fit in well with my poly friends everywhere: they're a mix of race and Kinsey rating, are into Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica and Neil Gaiman and Monty Python and kink and politics, they have a very bright and inquisitive three-year-old daughter, and they have a range of spiritual beliefs, including Judaism, Paganism, atheism and Zulu practices.
It's that last one that fascinated me, and not just because I know so little about it. My hostess is training to be a Sangoma, a process that takes the average suburbanite several years to complete. Essentially, she's learning how to be in touch with various tribal ancestors, and this substantially affects her daily life. Some of the traditions are things I could totally get into: she can't wear shoes, her dress style is very natural and beautiful (although white is really not my colour) and traditional medicine. Other ones are just interesting: before I could actually speak to her, I had to take part in a ten-second ritual that involved me presenting something silver (in this case, 20p) which she sprinkled some earth over... I can't quite remember the details but it had to do with the silver reflecting her spirit, because technically she's in the spirit world and her rebirth is pending. She's not supposed to eat anything from the inside of an animal-milk, eggs, etc.-and since she's already a vegetarian anyhow, she's now effectively vegan.
The part that really broke my head, and apparently the hardest part for her and most people doing this, is the abstinence. I don't have a problem with abstinence per se-I actually think I'd have an easier time with it than people may think-but I'm so used to religiously mandated abstinence being oppressive and permanent, and this is neither. Once her training is complete, she can go back to the happy, fairly promiscuous sex life she's had most of her life.
It still seems weird to me, though. I'm used to earthy, interpersonal spirituality celebrating sexuality, not preventing it. Then again, in a way this is a celebration: sexuality is seen as normal, healthy party of being human, and the idea is for her to put aside some of her human aspects for a while. Anyhow, she's pretty excited about it overall and I'm fascinated enough to want to come back for the final ritual in a couple of years' time, a multi-day affair that takes part in the plains somewhere and will involve a mix of indigenous people and various other races. I'm sure it will challenge my beliefs even more and be an experience to remember. Did I mention the goat sacrifice?
My mind was equally challenged trying to imagine what life was like here just 15 years ago. Black people were only allowed to live in certain areas (15% of the country, even though they make up over 80% of the population) and are banned from the rest of the country without a permit. To make it worse, the boundaries moved around: the District Six museum is about a black suburb in Cape Town that was completely razed to make way for new development, forcing its inhabitants further into the fringes, where basic needs like electricity and running water were not provided. All this on top of conditions similar to the American South: separate toilets and schools and park benches.
How does a society get over that? The older black shop keepers and clerks, who lived that kind of life (assuming they're not immigrants) and today serve me, somebody who's enjoyed a life of freedom, riches and privilege, how can they not be bitter? It's only been 14 years! I've been walking and driving around Cape Town, and while there's a lot of petty crime and certain areas that I should not go, it's mostly peaceful and pretty.
I'm told that a big help is that blacks now pretty much rule in South Africa. They hold most of the political offices, corporate executive positions, etc. The country now also has a very liberal constitution, not just over race issues, but other things as well-same-sex marriage is legal here, for example.
Those no-go parts of town, though... crikey! They're concentrated under flight paths, where nobody with any real status would live. Thousands of hectares of shacks and ramshackle houses, many of which still lack electricity, except for the giant, 30m-tall lights spaced in a grid about 100m apart from each other. But they're colourful, and from what I've seen and read, their inhabitants dress stylishly. It looks like they're following Western fashion trends, but if you ask the locals, they're influencing Western fashion trends, at least in the hip-hop scene.
The closest I've come to seeing them, though, is from the freeway, where the speed limit is 120km/h. But on my first day in the country, greenfizzpops and dje and I passed through one of the crappiest neighbourhoods I've ever seen. Houses were in disrepair, concrete barriers had been smashed and never fixed, streetlights were missing-stolen for scrap, apparently-and lots of people wandering aimlessly along the edges of arterial roads. I went through a couple of neighbourhoods like that in Chile, and I imagine the absolutely most impoverished neighbourhoods in Australia and the U.S, neglected Aboriginal townships and the most battle-torn ghettoes, would be barely as bad. But this was still a step or two above what I was talking about before.
So South Africa is a mix. In some ways, I get a similar vibe here as I did in Berlin, that of a society having recently overcome a great injustice and being driven to work through resulting social issues. But the social issues here are much more deeply rooted, and may take generations to solve, so I don't blame the people who are just up and leaving, either. I want to come here again a few more times, though, to see how things progress.