Some Quaker Reflections on South Africa

When I passed into the arrivals hall the place looked like every other airport I’ve seen. It was filled with the characteristic trolley carts of people pushing their luggage around, cabbies holding up signs for the clientele and advertisements everywhere for what to see in the country.

I stopped and took a long look around me trying to find my person, Sharon, in the sea of black faces ahead of me. It should have been easy but I was blind. It reminded me of this experiment I’d read about in my college years where kittens were raised in a cage with only vertical lines. When the kittens were released, they literally could not see anything horizontal. Being a minority for the first time in a place that is predominantly black was disorienting. Like the kittens I had a handicap to deal with. 

The guy at the taxi stand clearly saw the “deer in the headlights”look on my face and asked me if I needed a ride. I said that I had a ride but that I couldn’t locate her as my phone was not working in this place.

“Come with me I’ll give you a hotspot and if can reach your friend — if it works — you can offer me something”

It seemed fair enough. 

In a minute I was on the phone and Sharon came to the cab kiosk

I handed the guy a $10 because I didn’t have any small bills and he was delighted. I had just given him R187, enough to buy himself a nice lunch. Sharon shook her head at my naïveté and said “I should be more careful.”  Maybe I was to generous but off we went. 

What I’ve come to learn, is that South Africa is quite a polarized society. There are big gaps between the rich and the poor and everywhere you go in this country people are seeking ways to get by. 

If you park your car, there’s a parking attendant who will be looking for five Rand. 

If you use the toilet, there’s a toilet attendant who you are expected to give one or two Rands 

From the Quaker perspective of equality, this is a very unequal place and yet in spite of race and class this place seems to work; for how long no one knows but my gut sense is that unless the media whip up animosity between people they will continue to find ways of approaching each other’s humanity without violence. 

From the time the Portuguese landed here on their way to India in 1488 this place has been treated by Europeans as a rest stop where they took whatever they wanted.  

While locals were not taken for slaves elsewhere they were conscripted as laborers in service first to explorers and later to the chartered companies that would later take over everything. The Dutch East India Company first and then the British. Today the US, China and Russia are falling over each other to gain a foothold in a country so racked by corruption that the highest bidder will take all. 

When Mandela was elected  after apartheid the country was in a five year fever dream of reconciliation and redistribution of wealth to balance what had been stolen, but today a kleptocracy exists inside the ANC to the point that water & sewer doesn’t work, the roads are so full of potholes that 25 k/hr is too fast to drive and the railways and electric grid is literally being stolen wire by wire and rail by rail. Rolling blackouts are managed by a smartphone app from the electric company and passenger & freight rail has been replaced by trucks. 

In spite of all of this, the place is spectacularly beautiful. And the land seems to quietly resist development 600 years after the first explorers arrived. 

The place where I’m staying now, the Highlands, after Scottish people who we’re dumped here after the closure of the commons in Britain around 1820, is wild. The Eastern Cape is not that  hospitable to farming unless you’re either very lucky or very resilient. Some farmers have managed to eek out a living on sheep, cows, and goats but it’s not like Columbia County where there is rich topsoil and an abundance of water. The red clay is poor quality for planting. Dense scrub,  native trees and plenty of invasive species imported from Australia by boats from errant seeds cling to life. Rainfall on average is 250 - 300 mm. /yr.  Many houses and farms contain cisterns that hold 5000 - 10,000 liters of water for dry periods. 

One thing the environment is conducive for here is  community- you can’t be the “Marlboro Man” or the “Lone Ranger “ in this place or you’ll fail.  There seems to be deep ties of cooperation among the locals.  Because the local municipality is so corrupt and incompetent the roads are in very poor condition. They locals have refused to pay the road tax, escrowed the money with a lawyer and used it to hire a company to grade the road. As a Quaker (and a war protester) that kind of cooperation appeals to me.  A lawsuit is currently in progress to discover where the tax money goes once in the hands of officialdom. 

There are no Quakers in the Eastern Cape. The closest meeting seems to be near Cape Town but a deep reverence for nature pervades this place. If there is a God we can surely find it in creation.  Life wants to live. Its many forms may come and go but it refuses to die. If there is proof of God, then surely it is life for a strong as the powers of destruction are – – those powers never win.  By my estimation, spirituality runs deeply through this place but it requires stillness. 

One might see a termite mound and not realize below the ground is a hectare of termites, making their living in the soil beneath your feet.  They are carrying out their lives following some grand design that we can’t even fathom. 

Humans are self absorbed by the notion that we are the pinnacle of creation… Nothing could be farther from the truth.  If the last 4 billion years of life could be compressed into a single hour. Humans would be 11:59 PM. We carry a certain intelligence within us but we must also remember that we are just one part of a great web of life. The spirituality that I found in this place begins with humility. Humbly finding your place in the landscape, humbly asking your ancestors for guidance, and humbly seeking the small voice of God. The good news is that in a quiet place like a farm where there is no electricity, tv or internet that small voice seems closer. 

~ Joseph Olejak