David on the legacy of organizing

David in contemplation while climbing Table Mountain

In my medical ecology class this past fall, my professor took some time to explore the reasons why the Cholera epidemic in Haiti has been particularly severe. Along with widespread poverty, poor health infrastructure, inadequate disaster preparation and response, poor sanitation, and a host of other social and structural issues, he cited a lack of recent memory and cultural knowledge about Cholera as an exacerbating factor in the epidemic. Cholera had not been endemic to Haiti for at least a generation prior to the earthquake, meaning that the people there were not familiar with the disease and the steps they needed to take to ameliorate the symptoms or provide effective treatment. The knowledge of Cholera and its treatment was simply not a part of their cultural memory.

This concept of possessing (or lacking) cultural knowledge or memory has been in my mind since starting my internship at the Treatment Action Campaign several weeks ago. My fellow TAC interns and I have spent our time at the Khayelitsha Commission, a landmark government inquiry into the state of policing and community-police relations within Khayelitsha, the largest township in the Western Cape. This commission was the result of 10 years worth of organization and activism by multiple community organizations, including TAC, Social Justice Coalition, Equal Education, Ndifuna Ukwazi, FreeGender, Triangle Project, and more. Every day the gallery has been full of community members, and on multiple days there have been demonstrations by community activists outside the hall. Within, the activists wear t-shirts supporting their organizations and many listen to the testimony in Xhosa through the use of translators. This show of daily public support for the (often dry) commission proceedings has been a continual surprise to me.

I have never encountered community activism on this scale in my life, and I have been trying to understand why it is so prevalent in South Africa (and specifically Khayelitsha). It seems to me that the spirit and memory of activism (or “struggle”) is ingrained in the cultural knowledge of the South African people. Only twenty years after the beginning of democracy and the end of the Apartheid era, the memory of resistance and oppression lives on within the population. This learned knowledge seems apparent to me in the activism and commitment on display among the members of the community organizations.

During the Apartheid era, resistance to the government was organized in neighborhoods and communities on a nationwide scale. In reading about the struggle in Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela recounts the demonstrations of public disobedience, the marches and protests and campaigns, and the essential importance of building a network of community leaders and activists across the country. In the post-Apartheid era, the struggle has been taken up by a multitude of community organizations (such as TAC and SJC) that draw their power from grassroots activists and leaders. It seems to me that the recent memory of organization and resistance remains a vital part of community life for many South Africans.

           

Speaking exclusively from my experience, I have never before been exposed to this level of community organization. Even in the United States, not many decades after the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests (among many other occasions of protest and organization), the memory and experience of activism seems like a much less vital part of our culture. Were these not the struggles of my parents’ generation? And do these struggles against institutional racism, militarism, environmental exploitation, economic injustice and other issues not continue today?

I have been privileged to work with a UConn faculty member for over three years, and in that time I became acquainted with the more activist sides of her character in discussions over certain university policies. She would ask me why the students weren’t up in arms over one policy or another- such as the authoritarian spring weekend restrictions of several years past- and I responded what while I knew that many students were unhappy with the policy, most took their protest only to the point of venting on facebook and to friends. Where was the response?

While UConn may not be home to a dedicated base of student activists, I have witnessed many successful student demonstrations, protests, and events, most notably around the topic of sexual violence and reproductive rights. These include the protest against the Genocide Awareness Project’s display on Fairfield Way in spring 2012, the annual Slutwalk and Take Back the Night demonstrations, and the recent complaints brought against the university by the Title IX Coalition.

These events are exceptions, rather than the rule. I just feel like something is very different here in South Africa, even if I can’t adequately express it. I must also consider the fact that I have never spent time in a community like Khayelitsha before in my life, and that the experiences I have here should not be indiscriminately compared to life in the United States. I just know that when I hear youth activists singing protest songs with a rainbow of voices, or toyi-toying down the street with banners and signs held aloft, I ask myself: how do they know to do that? How did they learn, and from whom? I feel like the legacy of organizing during Apartheid must be at least some part of the answer.

TAC Protest