South Africa Wrap Up

On our last day in South Africa, we went to Pretoria, the nation’s capital and about an hours drive from Jo’burg. We first went to the Voortrekker monument, a giant building built to commorate the Afrikaaner pioneers who went on the “Great Trek” from Cape town to the inland areas of SA in the 1800s. It was built in the 1930s in the Art Deco style. I went into the day thinking that it was going to be very racist and controversial. But after looking through the exhibits, the Voortrekkers seemed to be the exact same as the America’s heroic westward traveling pioneers. They even wore sunbonnets and used oxen powered covered wagons. The monument really served as a slap in the face in terms of my interpretation of American history. The problem is that we rarely get to hear the side of the Native Americans, while in SA we often hear the perspective of the original people. History really is determined by those who conquered. Anyway, the monument was really cool- even engineered so that on December 16^th, the date of a large battle, a ray of sunlight shines into the monument over the tomb of the unknown Voortrekker. We also saw zebras right outside of the monument!

After the monument, we went to the US Embassy. After going through heavy security checks, we met with the Senior political advisor, a cultural affairs officer, and the deputy press attaché. They gave us information about the role of the embassy and about the process of entering into a career with the State Department. It re-inspired me to consider a career with them. Afterwards, we headed to the University of Pretoria to meet with a history professor who was also an Afrikaaner. He explained the Great Trek more fully and had an interesting observation about the end of apartheid. He said that the Afrikaaner community felt apartheid was justified as long as the United States imposed segregation as well. After the civil rights movement, the Cold War was in progress and since the ANC, the group in charge of the liberation movement, was also unashamedly communist, the US was afraid an ANC government takeover would mean losing an ally in the Cold War as well as losing access to the supply of strategic metals necessary to produce nuclear weapons. So the US chose to support the white dominated government to maintain its own security and stability. Only after the end of the Cold War did the US become outspoken in ending apartheid. It was a very interesting point of view that I would have never considered otherwise. He was also a very entertaining professor and told me afterwards that he had been to Oregon and visited the Bonneville Dam and hiked up Eagle Creek! Small world.