The Apartheid Museum

I am back home in Jamaica reflecting on my recent trip to South Africa. One of the amazing things about the country is the buzz of hope and possibilities. Everywhere you go, despite the acknowledged challenges and hardships, you feel the energy of hope.

One of the highlights of the trip was my visit to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. The museum encapsulated the nation’s journey from one of the most dastardly systems of oppression to the emerging sunshine of freedom. As I viewed te the exhibits I was struck by the violence rent man to man – African to African; English to Boer; Boer to African – seems like all groups were inflicting violence on each other all in the name of power and control. This history of violence was driven by fear of others, of the unknown, of uncertainty, of the future. Fundamentally, the fear was not from what others were doing or not doing, but from how people saw the situation and projected into the future. The fear was, and always is, in their minds.

I experienced such a mishmash of emotions – anger, pain, deep sorrow, joy, regret, hope and others – and I found myself thinking “Is this journey different to the journey that Jamaica has travelled?” I envisioned an Apartheid Museum in Jamaica that would chronicle our journey. And it occurred to me that it would not be dissimilar to the South African museum. Maybe the violence and oppression were not as formalised and institutionalised in Jamaica as in South Africa, but it happened, and worse, continues to happen. There has been no national cleansing, no truth and reconciliation, no healing, no coming out of our denial.

We Jamaicans are proud of the role we played in South Africa’s fight for freedom. What about our own freedom? How can we be so busy fighting for the rights of others that we neglect the rights of our own people? In standing up for the principles of freedom and democracy, are we standing up for our right in an authentic, genuine way? Or is it just grandstanding? For a truly genuine commitment to freedom would have us shouting the loudest in our own backyard.

Yes, we cried “Free Nelson Mandela” – over and over until he was free. What we must not forget nor neglect are the many Nelsons in Jamaica oppressed by a system that keeps them poor and uneducated, thus denying them of the hope of a future of dreams and possibilities! And further, we must never forget that we cannot build a society based on fear – for fear will only create more fear, which as I saw so clearly in the Apartheid Museum, only leads to a downward spiral of the fight for power and control. The turning point from fear is to come out of our denial, accept our past, forgive and then ….. LOVE!