Hope. In Zulu the word is themba. It is the base of several common names, including the name of my friend who I lost this year, Sithembile. So many of us lost people this year and hope often felt distant. I have been thinking a lot about hope this week, about what it means to have hope, to have so much hope in a challenging time that you give your child a name to embody that feeling. It is a feeling that I have for the first time in a while this week. This past year has been hard for everyone and the past few weeks has felt like we are at the bottom of a deep pit as a country, as a world. A pandemic, an insurrection, an economic crisis. Having lived and worked globally in some places where institutions have faltered under less stress, I have been worried. But today I have hope. I finally was able to look up from the bottom of that pit and see there is light still up there. While I have seen countries falter, I have seen others make it through. Still struggling, yes, but not yet beaten.
The first time I witnessed a country make it through a time some were not sure they would was in June 1999. I was living in rural Mpumalanga, South Africa. Nelson Mandela was president and the second ever free elections were being held. This was a big deal. A very big deal. A quick history lesson for those whose South African history is a bit rusty. South Africa was colonized by the British and the Dutch. There were numerous conflicts between these two groups that I won’t go into here, but these white colonists, eventually known as the English and the Afrikaaners made up about twenty percent of the population by the early twentieth century. The remaining eighty percent were mostly Africans, with a smaller minority of Indians (Indian indentured servants and then later Indian immigrants who worked in trade and business) and Coloureds (descendants of Europeans, Africans and Malyasians). In 1910, South Africa became an independent republic, one where the white population had significant political and economic control. Over the next several decades, this control was formalized through a series of Land Acts where the black population was systematically removed from their land and moved to homelands based on ethnic group. In 1948, the National Party, a white supremist party, won the election and instituted the policy of apartheid (separateness). The formalization of white supremacy took on many forms, from continued geographic segregation of the races, to the systematic disempowerment economically and politically of the black population. The Indian and Coloured population held a bit more economic and political influence, but not much. This system was violent, oppressive, and led to stark inequalities still seen today.
From the implementation of apartheid till its end in 1994 (there was a transition period from 1990–1994), people fought and died for freedom. Nelson Mandela, the best known of those fighting against aparthied, spent twenty-seven years as a political prisoner before his release in 1990. In 1994 he was elected president in the first open and democratic election in the country. He only served one term, retiring to allow the country to move on and continue healing. So, the second democratic election was in 1999, about a year and a half after I moved to Mayflower (my village).
South Africa was facing so many issues. White supremacy was no longer state policy, but the inequalities caused by it being so for decades (or more like centuries) were clear. A new pandemic of HIV/AIDS was starting to ruin lives and families. Funerals were so common in my community by 1999 that I expected to see one most Wednesdays and Saturdays- the common days they were held. The economy in my community was weak- I estimate the unemployment rate was easily 50%. Whoever won this election would have a lot to deal with. But people had hope. That was always clear to me, that even as they struggled, they assumed the best was in front of them.
The Peace Corps had warned us to stay home that day, as there were fears that there might be election violence. There was a bit, but mostly in Kwa-Zulu Natal, not near where I was. By that point in time I knew the community quite well and was not concerned about violence. So I went out to the polls. I watched people stand in a line that went down the road from the municipal building. Gogos (grannies) were making vetkoeks (fat cakes) and selling them to those waiting. People were talking, the mood was good. I watched the line slowly move, as one by one old and young made their ways into the polls, casting their votes. Democracy was still young, still fragile, but people had hope it would hold through this election. Mandela was not on the ballot- there was no giant to pull the country together. But people voted and democracy and peace held. It still holds, twenty-two years later, although there are wounds and scars from bad decisions and bad actors, a situation hardly unique.
Over two decades later I voted in the American election in 2020. Sadly, some of the same issues I saw play out in South Africa years before were on the ballot here. White supremacy, while maybe not the official policy of the country, is clearly a dominant force, the inequalities it created easy to see as one moves around any major US city. A pandemic is raging, destroying lives and families. The economy is struggling, small businesses suffering, unemployment higher than it has been in years. I voted in 2020 with a combination of fear and hope. Fear knowing that there is nothing about being Americans that makes us so much different than these other countries I have worked in that we couldn’t also collapse, yet hope knowing that our institutions are strong. They have held through wars and pandemics and crises before. We too have wounds and scars from bad decisions and bad actors, but we also have systems in place that work, most of the time. I was thrilled with the election results, needless to say, but then I watched with the rest of the world as the Capital was invaded and an insurrection mounted. While terrible, it did serve as a wake up I think to many. A realization that words and policies and actions have consequences. And now today, I watched as a new President was sworn in and a female woman of color was sworn in as Vice President as tears streamed down my face. I have hope again. I can look up from this pit and see light up there. There will be those who will try to beat us down as we climb out of this pit. Some will have weapons, some will have words which can activate those weapons. But we have determination. We have our own fiercness. We have hope.
