{"id":14022,"date":"2017-09-14T20:21:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T03:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14022"},"modified":"2017-09-14T20:22:38","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T03:22:38","slug":"how-little-i-knew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-little-i-knew\/","title":{"rendered":"How Little I Knew…"},"content":{"rendered":"

My earliest memories of apartheid came from a movie. “Because your black”….in Lethal Weapon 2, when Danny Glover and Joe Pesci had gone to the South African consulate as a distraction the idea of apartheid hit home for me. \u00a0Why would a person of color want to even go somewhere they were hated? \u00a0Even the South African consulate worker was shocked.\u00a0 To be fair, I had never even heard the word apartheid.\u00a0 I had never paid much attention to MTV, they never played the music I preferred, (Headbangers Ball for those who care).\u00a0 The songs about freedom for South Africa, the festivals held for the same, I just did not care.\u00a0 I guess my conscious never cared.\u00a0 When I started to find out about apartheid, because of this movie I was shocked.\u00a0 How could a relatively small group of whites control a vast indigenous people?\u00a0 I had never considered myself a person who cared about race.\u00a0 Most minorities I knew came from two places.\u00a0 Men who my grandfather hired to help work on the farm, Bubba Justice was the nicest man I ever have met.\u00a0 The second place was in sports.\u00a0 I could not have cared what color someone was, as long as they worked together as a team, great you were my friend.\u00a0 \u00a0Fast forward almost thirty years and we seem to have gone backwards in this country in relations between races to the point of we have government officials, on both sides talking about how one race deserves more than the other. \u00a0Whether is is the alt-right demanding a wall, or factions of the BLM demanding safe spaces where whites are not allowed, none of the lessons from the past seem to have been learned. \u00a0It was for this reason I was very interested in reading The Rise And Fall Of Apartheid<\/em> by David Welsh.<\/p>\n

The beginning of the book start with the election results of 1948, and how they were brought about. \u00a0The division among whites and blacks was not a surprise to me, that was the basis of apartheid. \u00a0The divisions among the whites in South Africa was a surprise. \u00a0The anger held against those who supported the colonial influence which “proceeded in the expectation that \u00a0the subjugation of the Boer States, among other beneficial results, had also brought about uniligualism (English) for the whole of South Africa”1, seems to have lead to the National Party coming to power. \u00a0The anger at feeling like one was loosing their control or power can be a powerful spur try to capture what one once was seen as a given.<\/p>\n

The backing of apartheid by the church in South Africa reminds one of the Christian justification of slavery in the US south.\u00a0 Scriptures stating Abraham had slaves or from Ephesians 6:5 “slaves obey your earthly masters” or Titus 2:9 “tell slaves to be submissive to their masters” were used as justification in the US.\u00a0 As with anything, you can take a part of scripture and make it your argument on just about anything.\u00a0 There are still roots of this found today, people believe intermarriage of races is against what the bible teaches, without foundation in scripture.\u00a0 I did find hope in reading as South Africa started its journey out of apartheid, that churches started to take a stand against it.\u00a0 The\u00a0Church and Society,\u00a0<\/em>a statement against apartheid, caused a rift in the church but it was necessary.\u00a0 Some of the statements are as follows, “forced division cannot be derived from the bible, apartheid could not be accepted because it conflicted with the principle of loving one’s neighbor, scriptures did not forbid racially mixed marriages, and racism was condemned” .2\u00a0 You finally see a part of the church actually doing the right thing.\u00a0 As I watch what is happening in the U.S. now, I wonder, is the church doing the right thing.\u00a0 Are we standing for those who have been wronged.\u00a0 I don’t know how that looks either.\u00a0 There are too many in our churches today who would argue we should get caught up in social justice issues.\u00a0 I struggle with this myself.\u00a0 I do not know if I could do anything.\u00a0 There is such angst against a white male, does it really even matter what I think to those who feel wronged.\u00a0 The best I have been able to do at this point is to not get involved one way or the other.\u00a0 When I read this book, it hit me.\u00a0 By not doing anything, I am complicit with everything.\u00a0 I do not know what that means moving forward but it has to mean something.<\/p>\n

When you look at how Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk came together to begin the healing process for a nation you have to understand what guts it took.\u00a0 When the violent aspects of both side could have taken South Africa into turmoil from which it would never escape.\u00a0 From the violent reaction to uprisings courtesy of the government to the “necklacing” by young militants to those who opposed them, the country could have erupted in flames and still be burning.\u00a0 The ability of two leaders, to come to a bargaining table and to hammer out an agreement which could peacefully transition a society cannot be understated.\u00a0 F.W. De Klerk’s brother spoke about his ability to be conservative enough to be elected, but flexible enough to understand what was coming and to find a way to peace.\u00a0 Nelson Mandela could have continued on his way as a violent protester, but after he was released he understood what it would take to heal his country.\u00a0 By working together with a man who, at one time, was his enemy, he showed what true leadership can do.<\/p>\n

I do not know how this book will affect my way of thinking years from now, but I can say with assurance, it did spur me to consider my point of view on many things.\u00a0 The least of which would be relations with those in my own country.\u00a0 It also encourages me to see what can be done when one forgives and moves forward with reconciliation.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0David Welsh,\u00a0The Rise And Fall Of Apartheid<\/em>, (Johannesburg & Capetown: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2009), 4<\/li>\n
  2. Ibid. 191<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My earliest memories of apartheid came from a movie. “Because your black”….in Lethal Weapon 2, when Danny Glover and Joe Pesci had gone to the South African consulate as a distraction the idea of apartheid hit home for me. \u00a0Why would a person of color want to even go somewhere they were hated? \u00a0Even the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[975],"class_list":["post-14022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apartheid","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14022"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14081,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14022\/revisions\/14081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}