This week I visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg with a friend who had not seen it before. It was not my first visit and will not be my last. Once again I was struck by 4 things:
1. How long a system can take to change
2. How quickly a system can fall
3. How powerful the human spirit is and
4. How the forces of the human spirit are leading towards greater and greater degrees of unity in the affairs of mankind
At several points in the tour I found myself starting to tear up because of two emotions: pain and joy. Pain because of the hurt caused and joy because of the heights of freedom achieved. I am not even only singularly talking about the pain caused by apartheid to the segregated but the pain that the segregators were inflicting on themselves because they were denying theirs and others true reality (that of being one human family) and not only of the joy from freedom after the creation of a new State but the inner joy and freedom that each segregated one knew in their heart that no man could take away regardless of any existing law or rule (the freedom of the human spirit from man-made limitations).
There was a video of Verwoerd justifying the policy of apartheid and he was calling it "good neighbourliness", no doubt referring to the separate developments and creation of the former homelands. I thought how strange! If I trusted my neighbour, if I cared for my neighbour I would want to become more involved, not less involved, I would say come over whenever you want, sure your kids can play with my kids, let's see how we can improve our common property and the overall street, here are the keys to my house could you please look after it whilst I am away. At the State level this was not the tone of thinking at all when you consider laws such as the Group Areas Act, the Morality Act etc!
Thankfully the human spirit can not be limited by human law and imagination.
Very well stated, Roland. Thanks for posting. The museum is very moving. I was lucky to have seen it some years back.
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