Freedom is a Good Start

“I have discovered...that after climbing a great hill, one only finds...many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger for my long walk is not yet ended.” 

(Nelson Mandela on his release in 1994) 

      

Two weeks ago I attended the Leadership for Human Rights evening organised by the Swedish Postcode Lottery, in the Stockholm Concert Hall. The evening was dedicated to the fact that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". The participants were our very own Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jan Eliasson, the new UN Deputy Secretary-general as of July 2012, and  the actor, Sean Penn, the ambassador at large for Haiti.

Tutu echoed Madiba's sentiment when he said “freedom means being forever vigilant”. We cannot sit back and leave a few people to guard our precious, hard-fought-for democracy – we all have a role to play in safe-guarding the freedom, dignity and equality of all the people who live in our country and maintain the integrity of this legacy for our children and their children.

Democracy is not a free ride, is the message that comes out strongly in the movie, Fair Game, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. The movie is based on the memoir by CIA agent, Valerie Plame, whose cover was purposefully leaked by the Bush administration after her husband and former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, writes an editorial in the New York Times disputing the administration’s claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In the movie, Joseph Wilson makes the point to his wife that just because he can shout louder than her does not mean he is right, in the same way that the Bush administration was not right just because they were more powerful, and that this should not stop them from speaking up for the truth.

It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get on with the business of being free. 

Thank You St Cyprian's

Last Monday my daughter wrote her last school exam, ever. When she was finished she took off her school shoes tied them together by the laces, and put them in a big box for Mama Amelia, along with the shoes of all the other girls who had finished writing. Mama Amelia will distribute the shoes to those who are in need of them.

She walked out of the school grounds barefoot, leaving behind 14 years of formal schooling and stepped towards a new phase of her life. She has been nurtured and prepared for her adult life all the while being made aware of the needs of those less fortunate. Leaving her shoes behind is just one of many reminders that have helped her on this path.

St Cyprian’s has proved to be a very special school. The ethos of social responsibility, tolerance and respect, runs deep. The school is working hard towards being as diverse as it can be – teachers and students of different cultures, colours and creeds work and learn side by side. At one stage there were 20 different languages being spoken in the boarding school. The French students had petit dejeuner with pain au chocalat and croissants; after the Afrikaans exam their teachers were there with koffie en melktert to sustain them.

For Human Rights Day this year they came to school barefoot with a pair of their own shoes to donate. By the end of the day they were able to trace out a giant ‘140’ with all the shoes on the sports field, for the 140 years the school has been in existence.

Every year Africa Day is proudly celebrated – everyone dresses up in the colours of one of the African countries, classroom doors are decorated and food pyramids created.  From grade eight they are challenged to complete a certain number of hours of community service. The school enables this by organising various projects. In December senior girls are chosen to go off to work on one of the Round Square International Service projects.

As a Round Square school, St Cyprian's subscribes to the ideals of internationalism, democracy, environmentalism, academic excellence, and leadership. They are certainly fulfilling these aims. And year after year the girls come back to celebrate St Cyprian’s Day in St George’s Cathedral, ending with a scrumptious tea in the school grounds and a dance around the cypress tree!

Cypress tree in front of the school

The Gaza Doctor

Hate is an easy option. It takes courage to not hate. That is the message that has come through strongly for me from Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish’s book, I Shall Not Hate.  Dr Abuelaish is also known as “the Gaza doctor”. In 2009 he suffered unspeakable tragedy when three of his daughters were killed by Israeli Defence Force shells, three months after he lost his wife to acute leukemia.

A month ago I attended one of his lectures at the UCT medical school as part of the alumni program. I was blown away by this man who spoke of the tragedy with tears quietly streaming down his cheeks. But it is his response to this tragedy that is remarkable. He refuses to sink into hatred, although he acknowledges the anger he feels. Anger is important, he says, if it is accompanied by change and propels you toward necessary action to change the situation and make it better for everyone.

He spoke for close on an hour with a passion and quiet strength that points to how he has managed to survive with dignity and compassion. He says that as a medical doctor he has been trained to save lives, to treat people irrespective of who they are and that it is this belief that has helped him to search for the humanity in everyone that he has come into contact with.  

I had to buy the book to learn more about what makes this man tick. It is hard to imagine the daily life in Gaza that he describes in the book, the immense difficulties that he has overcome to achieve what he has. In spite of the immense loss that he has suffered, he believes that peace is possible. He hopes that the deaths of his daughters will be the last sacrifice on the road to peace in the Middle East.

He urges us to act now – that it is up to all of us to speak up and take an active role in promoting peace. During his talk he quoted a passage from the German Pastor Niemoller whose words I remember having up on my notice board during the apartheid years:

In Germany they first came for the Communists, 

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. 

Then they came for the Jews, 

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. 

Then they came for the trade unionists, 

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. 

Then they came for the Catholics, 

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. 

Then they came for me — 

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish is published by Bloomsbury

A Picture is worth a Thousand Words

Fotografiska is the red building on the other side of the water

On my last day in Sweden, friends invited me to visit the new photographic museum, Fotografiska, with them. Since I have an interest in photography this seemed like an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon. A very packed tube journey later (Labour Day was being celebrated all over the city with marches and rallies) we arrived at the building on the edge of the water. Three photographers were being exhibited – Albert Watson, Edward Burtynsky and Jonathan Torgovnik.

We started on the lower level with the Scotsman, Watson. He has made a name for himself as a fashion photographer, having photographed the likes of models, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, as well as famous sportspeople and singers. The variety in his work is so huge that it is hard to believe that all the photos were taken by the same person. On display were some unusual variations like the headshot of Mike Tyson taken from the back. He also had and interesting sequence of photographs of Michael Jackson taken in the 1990’s. The photos seem to have been cut into strips and then put together again.

Moving up a floor, we found the environmental photography of Canadian Burtynsky . He has done a series of photographs of our relationship with oil and depicts the destruction of the land and sea through drilling. There are also photographs which show the waste related to the industry like piles of discarded tyres and graveyards of rusted cars and planes.

The final section was the heartbreaking account of the Rwandan women and the children who were born from their rape during the genocide. I think I managed to read three of the stories which accompanied the photographs before I was so overcome with sadness that I had to leave. After the very emotional few days I had with the World's Children’s Prize, this was just too much to bear.

Jonathan Torgovnik has systematically recorded the stories of some of the thousands of Tutsi women who were raped in 1994 and “the children of bad memories” as they are called. In one of the stories a woman who tells of her ordeal makes it so clear that there was no way that she was able to love this child she had borne. On one level I could understand that, but on another I felt such pain for this child who has been condemned to grow up without love.

Many people were visibly moved by the exhibition and I was hyper-sensitive to the tension in the room. I moved off into the area where a video interview with the photographer was being shown. He was making the point that many of the men who committed such horrible crimes have simply moved over the border and are probably doing exactly the same thing in the Congo or somewhere else. I am constantly amazed by the pain we as humans can inflict on one another, and especially on the children who we have been entrusted to take care of.

View from Fotografiska

We retreated to the restaurant to compose ourselves with a cup of tea. The huge windows look out over Stockholm, light years away from the worlds we had just been exposed to. The museum is worth a visit. 

For more on the photographers and their work visit:

Edward Burtynsky

Albert Watson and

Jonathan Torgovnik

Jonathan Torgovnik has also started a foundation to help the mothers and children.

Look at us now!

A little while ago I read an article in the newspaper about an archaeological finding in SA that has been hushed up since the 1930's. The finding is thought to be about a 1000 years old and includes gold artifacts and glass beads from India, proving that the early inhabitants of the area must have been established traders. The finding was suppressed because it was contrary to the Apartheid policy that Africans were uncivilised.

Sometimes out of the blue, I realise just how oppressed we were - how controlled every aspect of our lives was and how successful Apartheid policy was in controlling us. We don't realise the miracle that democracy is, that we have overcome the brain-washing of more than 40 years to be where we are today. Certainly, the Apartheid curriculum for the "Department of Coloured, Bantu or Indian Affairs" did not allow for any independent thought.

I was thinking about this after helping my daughter edit her History essay a few days ago. She was to discuss "the impact of internal and external factors on the economic challenges of post-colonial Africa" - quite an interesting discussion ensued about the social and political factors following the independence of African countries from European colonial powers. I am constantly amazed at the subject matter they cover at school these days. I am not sure how many of us realise how much more progressive the school curriculum has become.

A year or two ago she had to design a protest T-shirt for an art project - not so long ago being in possession of such an item of clothing would almost guarantee arrest! And it is not only during Art and History that they are being enlightened. They read literature by African writers, study Human Rights in Life Orientation (we are one of the few countries who do) and the eugenics of race in Biology. My son at junior school is similarly being encouraged to hear both sides of the story and to think for himself. He is certainly not learning the same version of the colonisation of the Cape or of the Zulu war, that we were forced to learn. He learns Xhosa as easily as he learns Afrikaans - no baggage attached.

Imagine the possibilities if we had all been given the opportunity to stretch our minds, to know and to understand. When I was in Sweden for the children's rights awards, Magnus Bergmar, the founder of the WCPRC, told me that he thought that "an ongoing humanisation of every new generation is necessary for any sustainable development." We need strategies for a better world, he went on to say. I know that we still have much work to do, but I think that we are moving in the right direction and that our children are going to be better humans who will make a better world.