Revisiting the Rainbow Nation
GARY SAMOWITZ
FOR three weeks in September, I revisited the land of my roots. I drove on the dusty roads of the Pilansberg Game Reserve eagerly searching for the big five; walked on Muizenberg Beach retracing the steps of my childhood holidays; and enjoyed every bite of my toasted cheese from the Dolls House drive-through diner in Johannesburg.
Every sight, smell and sound deeply embedded in my romanticised memory of South Africa was ignited.
In Australia I get mocked for having a South African accent, yet in South Africa I received ridicule for sounding like an Aussie.
Caught between two worlds, I am simultaneously at home and a stranger in both.
Since 1970, some 50,000 Jews are believed to have left South Africa, many finding their new home in Australia. The largest wave of emigration was in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the violent dying stages of apartheid and the difficult times of South Africa’s democratic rebirth.
The “Rainbow Nation” has succeeded in many ways, however, it seems the shackles of apartheid have not yet been overcome.
One of the reasons I was in South Africa was to meet with a range of non-government organisations (NGOs) in order to research and identify potential volunteer opportunities for Jewish Aid Australia members.
I was awoken to the challenges facing the country when visiting a township called Diepsloot on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
The organisation that took me there, MaAfrika Tikkun, gave me a tour of the inspiring, capacity-building programs they had initiated including a kindergarten, youth club, crafts shop, vegetable garden and a homecare service.
The social worker then began telling me about some of the people who use their services and my heart sank. Stories of starving and HIV/AIDS-infected children, rape and homelessness. She told me that 1000 AIDS-associated deaths occur every day in South Africa, which has resulted in more than half-a-million orphaned children.
I did not feel that I was down the road from the beautiful suburbs of Fourways and Dainfern, but rather in a nightmare. Where is the government? Where is the international community?
South Africa’s affirmative action and black economic empowerment program, which were designed to redress the iniquities of apartheid, have resulted in a decrease in absolute poverty. But there has also been an increase in inequality between the highest and lowest income groups.
At almost every stop sign in Johannesburg, you will find a beggar staring you in the eye, pleading for a few cents to feed his family. You are either constantly confronted with the ethical dilemma to give or not, or totally oblivious to their existence.
Most Jewish South Africans live in islands of prosperity and luxury surrounded by a murky ocean of poverty, homelessness and crime. Whether you like it or not, there is a sense of fear hanging over your head, and it’s glaringly apparent that the Jewish community in Johannesburg is becoming increasingly religious.
While this has resulted in a more active and engaged community, I feel it has also produced an inward-looking and isolationist mentality, which seems to breed more synagogues and yeshivahs and less outreach initiatives and tzedakah to the wider South African community.
The domestic worker who worked for my family for 20 years had a grandson three months ago. My eyes misted over when she told me that he was named Gary, after me. I pray that Gary and millions of other children in the Rainbow Nation can break free from the poverty-stricken lives into which they are born, and gain access to education, health care and ­security.
Through capacity-building programs, lobbying governments and volunteering our skills and resources, we have the ability to bring about change. To dismiss the hardships plaguing South Africa as too overwhelming, or as something we just can’t manage, is to turn our backs on millions of desperate people: as Jews, this is something we cannot do.
Gary Samowitz is the CEO of Jewish Aid Australia.
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