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Speaker 1: Pushing it. I'm Khalil Jibron Muhammad.

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Speaker 2: I'm Ben Austen. We're two best friends, one black, one white.

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Speaker 1: I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is

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Speaker 1: some of my best friends are.

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Speaker 2: Some of my best friends are dot dot dot. In

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Speaker 2: this show, we wrestled with the challenges and the absurdities

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Speaker 2: of a deeply divided and unequal country.

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Speaker 1: Today we're talking about South Africa, another deeply divided and

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Speaker 1: unequal country.

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Speaker 2: No kidding. We are going to discuss how successful South

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Speaker 2: Africa has been in its attempts to address its history

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Speaker 2: of apartheid.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it. I had never been to South Africa

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Speaker 1: until a few months ago, and I was really looking

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Speaker 1: forward to it because my dad had gone many times

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Speaker 1: to cover like the elections there in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: I went to actually study how they memorialize the history

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Speaker 1: of apartheid and how they've addressed it since it ended.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is a really big, important, meaty, heavy

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Speaker 1: issue because if we are in the United States to

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Speaker 1: figure out how to reckon with our own past, it's

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Speaker 1: definitely the case that South Africa has been a model

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Speaker 1: for a lot of places, including people here talking about

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Speaker 1: what we should do. So that's what I went there

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Speaker 1: to look at up.

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Speaker 2: Close, no doubt. And when you said your father was

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Speaker 2: there looking at the elections in nineteen ninety four.

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Speaker 1: He was shooting them. He was a journalist.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was there in nineteen ninety four. He and

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Speaker 2: I hung out because I was there on a full

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Speaker 2: bright to go to graduate school at the University of

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Speaker 2: Cape Town. And so I was there at the birth

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Speaker 2: of the country's democracy, its first all race election. And

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Speaker 2: so to think about all these years past to talk

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Speaker 2: to you about, you know, what's happened since then. I'm

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Speaker 2: really excited for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it,

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Speaker 2: and we've been kind of saving it, not talking about

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Speaker 2: it because we're saving it for right now.

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Speaker 1: So let's do it, all right, Well, let's get to

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Speaker 1: some history. Let's talk about the basics of what happened

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Speaker 1: in this country so we can figure out how this

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Speaker 1: country is or is not moving forward. So A Part

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Speaker 1: eight starts when the Nationalist Party is elected an Africana

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Speaker 1: Party Dutch descendant settlers in nineteen forty eight. And this

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Speaker 1: is the moment when every kind of you know, like

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Speaker 1: the shittiest way that you could imagine separating white and

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Speaker 1: black and giving black people the worst of everything in

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Speaker 1: white people the best of everything comes into law.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the closest thing for us is segregation in the

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Speaker 2: South in the United States, except in South Africa, the

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Speaker 2: population is overwhelmingly black and you have this small minority

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Speaker 2: controlling power, control, owning land, all the resources.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's remarkable. Someone told me. The interesting thing

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Speaker 1: about South Africa is it's had every form of colonialism

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Speaker 1: and slavery. You could imagine they had chattel slavery going

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Speaker 1: back to the sixteen hundreds when the Dutch first settled

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Speaker 1: the Cape Town region. Then they had indigenous dispossession. They

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Speaker 1: removed the Khoi and Sun indigenous populations from their land,

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Speaker 1: and then for the Bantu populations which spanned from Zulu

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Speaker 1: to le Soto to Kosa and many other you know

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Speaker 1: what they recognize as indigenous tribes to the region. They

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Speaker 1: were dispossessed from their land, mostly after the discovery of

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Speaker 1: gold in the late nineteenth entry. So part of the

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Speaker 1: story of A Part eight is really building on a

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Speaker 1: long history of European settlement in what is today known

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Speaker 1: as South Africa and the British had a big part

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Speaker 1: in it. The Dutch, of course, you know, have been

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Speaker 1: there a long time, particularly since the Africana population is

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Speaker 1: descended from it. And the thing about A Part eight

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Speaker 1: when it formalizes in nineteen forty eight is it's so

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Speaker 1: systematic people have to carry passes to identify which township

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Speaker 1: they come from. It limits their mobility and their ability

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Speaker 1: to come and go. Because of course South Africa is

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Speaker 1: also about labor extraction. There they're using black people to

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Speaker 1: make money for white people, largely in doing gold mining,

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Speaker 1: diamond mining, and other forms of hard labor.

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Speaker 2: You talked about how systematic it is. It's also messy

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Speaker 2: in the ways that you just said too, because a

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Speaker 2: vast majority of the population are also working for people

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Speaker 2: working the minds of working at homes. So there's also

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Speaker 2: all kinds of interaction. Part of the laws that are

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Speaker 2: about sort of separating even more relationships sex and marriage,

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Speaker 2: removal of people from neighborhoods onto homelands, and bantu stands

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Speaker 2: like actual physical removal of entire neighborhoods to try to

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Speaker 2: try to keep that separation even more.

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Speaker 1: That's right and partly what is so powerful in seeing

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Speaker 1: the country today. When you define a country's natural resources,

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Speaker 1: its land, the things that make the country wealthy, like

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Speaker 1: its gold and diamonds, and the people themselves, when you

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Speaker 1: restrict them the eighty seven percent of a population a

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Speaker 1: giver take to about twelve percent of the land, you

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Speaker 1: can imagine how fundamentally traumatic and delimiting and ultimately dehumanizing

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Speaker 1: that's been generation after generation after generation. And one of

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Speaker 1: the things that's really fascinating about, like thinking about the

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Speaker 1: United States and its own process of segregation, like black

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Speaker 1: people were only thirteen percent of the population. But if

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Speaker 1: you take the worst thing you think about, Jim Crow,

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Speaker 1: and then say do that to eighty seven percent of

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Speaker 1: the population, then you really do get a sense of

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Speaker 1: the visceralness of a part eight and how powerful a

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Speaker 1: way of controlling the population it's been all these years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also this sense of almost like holding back

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Speaker 2: a damn a flood because there was always resistance against

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Speaker 2: it too.

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Speaker 1: That's right, well, talking about resistance. I mean, so listen,

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Speaker 1: everyone knows that Nelson Mandela is the most famous freedom

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Speaker 1: fighter in terms of the history of a parteit And

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Speaker 1: the thing about Nelson Mandela is, you know, he's part

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Speaker 1: of a political resistance organization called the African National Congress

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Speaker 1: that by the nineteen forties, Nelson Mandela, who is a

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Speaker 1: young lawyer, gets involved and begins to organize with A

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Speaker 1: and C leaders, and their goal is to end A

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Speaker 1: Part eight. They're going to build a movement kind of

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Speaker 1: in the tradition of the Civil rights movement, particularly in DOAACP.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of borrowing in fact between these two movements,

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Speaker 1: because by nineteen forty eight, the civil rights movement hasn't

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Speaker 1: yet taken a kind of grassroots dimension. But over the

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Speaker 1: next ten years, in nineteen fifties, these movements are going

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Speaker 1: to grow just.

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Speaker 2: As interesting that borrowing from the United States happens even

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Speaker 2: more by the nineteen sixties, the black resistance movement in

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Speaker 2: South Africa is borrowing from black power movement in the

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Speaker 2: United States. I've seen this as a model for a change, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. And it's sometime in the mid nineteen sixties that

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Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela, who's on the run for his political resistance,

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Speaker 1: there's this moment when the A and C decides that

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Speaker 1: it's going to have to resort to violence as a

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Speaker 1: way to make change. They see this next phase as

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Speaker 1: a resistance movement, and they began to plan for bombings

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Speaker 1: and other forms of violence. You know, this is the

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Speaker 1: kind of thing we saw in Northern Ireland during the

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Speaker 1: Troubles for people resisting the British colonialism. So violence by

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Speaker 1: the mid nineteen sixties is a part of a liberation strategy.

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Speaker 2: I will say also in response to extreme violence by

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Speaker 2: the government. Absolutely that they are these dramatic moments in

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Speaker 2: history of sort of these massacres of different sorts and

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Speaker 2: tamping down on even peaceful protest that lead to this

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Speaker 2: violent resistance as well. Yeah. So by nineteen sixty three,

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Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela is imprisoned and he spends the next twenty

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Speaker 2: seven years in prison. He's not freed until nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: when he's in his seventies.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, Vin, I mean, you just talked about the

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Speaker 1: end of Nelson Mandela's incarceration, which itself grew out of

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Speaker 1: really powerful student led movement by Winnie Mandela in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties while Nelson was still incarcerated, but by the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties. By nineteen ninety one, South Africa's president

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Speaker 1: FW de Clerk decides that he's going to have to

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Speaker 1: basically usher in a transition moment to end the party

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Speaker 1: and here you are showing up just about this time.

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Speaker 1: So so what was it like just just landing there

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Speaker 1: and being part of that moment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was. It was incredible. So you're right, like,

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Speaker 2: there's this there's this hope for a peaceful transition to

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Speaker 2: majority rule, but it also feels really precarious and uncertain

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Speaker 2: at the moment. I'm there, I'm there before the election,

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Speaker 2: and you know, is there going to be a civil war?

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Speaker 2: There's this scramble for power. Is the election going to

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Speaker 2: go off peacefully?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: It feels sort of like, you know, like at the

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Speaker 2: start of a democracy of a history, like at the

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Speaker 2: United States after the Revolutionary War, you know, like like

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Speaker 2: what's going to happen to this country?

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Speaker 1: So it felt I have a question for you. So

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Speaker 1: it felt it felt like that rather than being there

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Speaker 1: at the moment when the civil rights movement achieves its

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Speaker 1: legislative victories, like you were thinking about a new country altogether,

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Speaker 1: not just fixing an old one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think it felt like something radically new.

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Speaker 2: I remember the election day. It was also I remember

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Speaker 2: that it's your birthday. It Pril twenty seventh and so

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, and in Cape Town, where I was

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Speaker 2: this beautiful city, you know, framed by these mountains. It

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Speaker 2: was rainy and overcast and just like this eerie quietness,

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Speaker 2: and the lines stretched for miles and miles of people voting. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but it did feel like the start of this of

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Speaker 2: a new country, an entirely new country. And I know that,

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Speaker 2: I know that's imaginative, but countries are imaginations, like a

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Speaker 2: democracy or something. I mean, their laws and there's going

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Speaker 2: to be a constitution. But this sense, this thing actually

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Speaker 2: went off without without violence, that the country didn't fall apart,

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Speaker 2: they were able to hold election.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the constitution, and I have to

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Speaker 1: say that that's one of the shining prideful consequences or

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Speaker 1: legacies of this transition moment. People in South Africa do

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Speaker 1: this very day. The people I got to spend time

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Speaker 1: with and talk to, you know, they are very proud

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Speaker 1: of the constitution for its ability to express their shared

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Speaker 1: commitments to equality, which is one of the reasons why

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Speaker 1: some of the failures of this vision of South Africa's

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Speaker 1: future from nineteen nineties to the present is really less

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Speaker 1: about what the constitution promises, and more about the failures

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Speaker 1: of the country to come to terms with reckoning with

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Speaker 1: that past, as well as reparations, which is a huge

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Speaker 1: and controversial issue to this day.

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Speaker 2: So making a democracy is different than dealing with generations

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Speaker 2: of extreme inequality and enforced inequality and segregation. And so yeah,

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Speaker 2: I want to hear what you saw on your trip

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Speaker 2: about how the country has reckoned with this past, what

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Speaker 2: you learned.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're back from the break, Ben. I want

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Speaker 1: to tell you about a couple of places we visited,

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Speaker 1: like places we spent time and seeing up close. One

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Speaker 1: of these places is called Constitutional Hill. It's in Johannesburg.

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Speaker 1: It is it is home to today's Constitutional Court, which

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Speaker 1: is their equivalent of our US Supreme Court. As we

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Speaker 1: were approaching it, though, I asked, I asked our host

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Speaker 1: what was going on? Because I was confused about where

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Speaker 1: we're going?

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Speaker 3: Court?

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Speaker 1: Is the labordated.

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Speaker 2: Question?

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Speaker 1: It will become a pedent to you.

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Speaker 3: It used to be.

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Speaker 2: So they chained that. Yes, interesting, damn one. You know

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Speaker 2: now you were always going to say the thing, man,

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Speaker 2: You're always going to be like, why is this so

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Speaker 2: messed up? Why does it look like that? Too. It

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Speaker 2: used to be a prison man, so their court used

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Speaker 2: to be a prison. Is that purposeful, like in terms

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Speaker 2: of meaning or is it practical in terms of like

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Speaker 2: we need to repurpose that building and we got limited funds.

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Speaker 1: No, it's very purposeful in terms of meaning. This is

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Speaker 1: one of the ways that South Africa is doing a

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Speaker 1: good job, a very good job of reckoning with its past,

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Speaker 1: of a form of truth telling about the system of

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Speaker 1: a party. And indeed, the Constitutional Court sits at the

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Speaker 1: apex of what was once considered the Old Fort Prison complex.

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Speaker 1: It was in many ways the most productive site for

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Speaker 1: incarcerating political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela who spent time there.

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Speaker 1: Prisoners were brought in stripped, naked, humiliated, beaten, starved, placed

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Speaker 1: in solitary confinement. The actual prison for or tells this

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Speaker 1: story and shows you the actual grounds there. They're still maintained.

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Speaker 1: That's why it looks dilapidated, because it looks exactly like

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Speaker 1: this place purpose has always looked. Ok. It's a place

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Speaker 1: that is that is there to help remind people of

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Speaker 1: how precious their democracy is in relationship to this past.

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Speaker 1: It's a very powerful undertaking. And then being in that

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Speaker 1: place I mean being on Constitutional Hill seeing the prison

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Speaker 1: and a memorial to the Constitution itself. It's like you

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Speaker 1: also are reminded that they had this Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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Speaker 1: They began this process of bringing the country back together.

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Speaker 2: So the truth, truth and reconciliation begins actually a couple

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Speaker 2: of years after I leave, and it's a way for

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Speaker 2: the country to in a legal way, to try to

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Speaker 2: deal with this past, as you said, of murder and torture.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: was to allow for people who could prove they have

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Speaker 1: been victims of mostly police violence in the period between

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and nineteen ninety four could make an application

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Speaker 1: to appear before the Commission, at which time they would

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Speaker 1: tell their stories and they would identify perpetrators, who would

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Speaker 1: then be subject to prosecution under those terms. Perpetrators, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, could apply for amnesty under the condition

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Speaker 1: that they would also tell their stories of the terrible

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Speaker 1: things they did to people, including murder, and that they

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Speaker 1: would receive amnesty. They would not be punished for participating

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Speaker 1: fully in that process. The idea was that if enough

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Speaker 1: stories were told on both sides. It would create a

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Speaker 1: path for healing and reconciliation for the country, and it's

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Speaker 1: a really important first step for the African National Congress

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Speaker 1: to begin to create you know what Nelson Bendela called

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Speaker 1: this rainbow nation, like you know that we're all going

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Speaker 1: to come together, This multi racial democracy is going to

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Speaker 1: be real. But we have to have this truth reconciliation

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Speaker 1: process to achieve that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a kind of restorative justice, which we've talked

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Speaker 2: about before.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, well, first of all, we were trying to

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Speaker 1: make sense of how successful it was. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: whole point of our trip to South Africa was to

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Speaker 1: study the degree to with truth telling practices like a

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Speaker 1: truth commission is a useful way to reckon with the

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Speaker 1: past for a state or for a country and to

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Speaker 1: determine what are the ingredients for success. Some of this

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Speaker 1: I was reading, but a lot of my new learning

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Speaker 1: came with interviews of a number of people who were

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Speaker 1: either state actors, meeting public officials, or people who've been

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Speaker 1: responsible for enacting the commission itself. I actually spoke to

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Speaker 1: a commissioner or talk to people who were activists who

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Speaker 1: are doing some of the work today to support the

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Speaker 1: goals of the Commission that have never really truly been realized.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this thing went on for only two years

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Speaker 1: between nineteen ninety six and nineteen ninety eight, about twenty

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Speaker 1: two thousand people participated. But obviously you know that millions

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Speaker 1: of people suffered out of our parteip So some of

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Speaker 1: the basic limitations of the process itself have created this

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Speaker 1: movement that is called the Unfinished Business of the Truth

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Speaker 1: and Reconciliation Commission.

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Speaker 2: So you have ten tens of thousands of victims of

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Speaker 2: crimes who get to get to give testimony and they're heard,

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Speaker 2: and you have thousands of perpetrators who also get to

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Speaker 2: talk and apologize and they can possibly get amnesty if

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Speaker 2: they present honestly and so on and fully and so so, yeah,

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Speaker 2: tell tell me more like about this. You know the

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Speaker 2: sense that this is obviously that's only it's only like representative.

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Speaker 2: It's almost like symbolic for the rest of the country.

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Speaker 2: And you couldn't you couldn't do every better, right, and

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Speaker 2: so why couldn't that work as a sample size of

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Speaker 2: what a country needs to do to move forward in

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Speaker 2: this fledge link democracy and sort of to try to

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Speaker 2: live together in a sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's that's an interesting way to put it,

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Speaker 1: because in some ways, Desmond Tutu, who chaired the commission,

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Speaker 1: thought of it like a kind of sample, kind of

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Speaker 1: awn sample of reconciliation that it only could be. But

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Speaker 1: in the end, part of what led to frustration was

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Speaker 1: this arbitrary notion that there were very limited definitions of

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Speaker 1: what was a crime in the apartaiit understanding of the TRC,

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Speaker 1: meaning you know, police officers who killed people, or even

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Speaker 1: A and C members who killed people. Oftentimes members who

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Speaker 1: were fighting against A Part eight might use violence to

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Speaker 1: discipline and or execute someone who was an informant for

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Speaker 1: the state. So one of the ways to sort of

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Speaker 1: appreciate this challenge is that one, if it's only about

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Speaker 1: state violence, then you ignore the suffering of people who

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Speaker 1: led lives of destitution and desperation, who were victimized by

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Speaker 1: every form of inhumanity that a state can dole out,

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Speaker 1: including not having clean water, including eighty seven percent of

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Speaker 1: the population living on about twelve percent of the land,

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Speaker 1: and so on. The other thing that is a source

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Speaker 1: of current tension and frustration that we heard from people

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Speaker 1: when we talked was that more A and C members

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Speaker 1: were ultimately punished under this system than actual white ringers,

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Speaker 1: meaning you know, people who were avowed white supremacists, that

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Speaker 1: were far fewer of them, because in the course of

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Speaker 1: the prosecutions, when names were revealed, it was up to

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Speaker 1: the state to actually go after people, and the state ultimately,

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Speaker 1: that is the Black A and C government that's been

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Speaker 1: in charge since the end of A Part eight, failed

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Speaker 1: ultimately to follow up on prosecutions of people who who

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Speaker 1: were known to meet the definition of political violence again

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Speaker 1: committing a crime against the Part eight. Yeah, totally, totally.

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Speaker 2: I want to go back to something. I want to

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Speaker 2: go back to something you said, because I think it's

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Speaker 2: really fascinating. You said that it could only the TRC

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Speaker 2: in its in its purview, could really only deal with

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Speaker 2: people who are victims of political crimes. But it couldn't.

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Speaker 2: It can't. It can't address people who are victims of

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Speaker 2: the vast inequality and suffering and structural problems in a country.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: That's fascinating because you know that is changing the entire

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Speaker 2: sort of economic system of the country, which is the

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Speaker 2: country has failed to do.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: So if we're twenty eight years since the end of

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Speaker 1: A Part eight. The basic infrastructure of a PARTAIT that

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Speaker 1: was never designed to accommodate a quality of life standard

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Speaker 1: for everyone means that today something like electricity and power

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Speaker 1: does exist universally across the country. But today in a

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Speaker 1: free post to Parte South Africa, they have to manage electricity.

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Speaker 1: And the first thing we saw when we got off

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Speaker 1: the airplane was a blackout community. The hotel we were

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Speaker 1: staying in actually was surrounded by darkness. And of course

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Speaker 1: this hotel had generators to accommodate its overwhelmingly privileged guests

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Speaker 1: like ourselves and white people who are visiting the country.

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Speaker 1: So it's a mess, man, It's just I mean, we

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Speaker 1: heard from people who literally said in some ways their

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Speaker 1: lives were better under PARTEID, which was just devastating to hear.

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Speaker 1: So when we were at the Constitutional Court, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there were like sixty people there protesting, most of them elderly,

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Speaker 1: most of them black. But they are chanting a song

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Speaker 1: where they're calling out Cyril Rama Pulsa, who is the

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Speaker 1: current President of South Africa is the fifth president since

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Speaker 1: the end of A Part eight. They're basically saying we

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Speaker 1: helped get you elected, We gave you a helping hand.

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Speaker 1: We want your support. Now we need you to support

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Speaker 1: us to bring reparations to our communities.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we put you in office. Follow up on your

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Speaker 2: promises you owe us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So I ended up talking to one of the

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Speaker 1: protesters and her name is Nomah Russia Bonase and Noma

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Speaker 1: Leeds an organization called Kulamani. Now Kulamani is focused on

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Speaker 1: a whole range of issues. They had huge signs out

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Speaker 1: because they wanted people to understand they're at their Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: what kinds of issues they're facing. One of their signs said,

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Speaker 1: today's disasters are worse because of a PARTEP. Victims have

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Speaker 1: no redress. They talked about COVID, they talked about flooding,

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Speaker 1: they talked about gender based violence, about poverty, crime, inequality.

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Speaker 1: They basically saying, like, you know, our lives are worse

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Speaker 1: off when these terrible things happened because we've never actually

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Speaker 1: addressed the problem of a PARTAI. And they were calling

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Speaker 1: for reparations. They were making reparations the cornerstone of their organizing.

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Speaker 2: And so in the TRC, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

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Speaker 2: I think people who testified they could get a small

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Speaker 2: lump sum of like thirty five hundred dollars.

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Speaker 1: It was thirty thousand rand, which Noma, the head of

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Speaker 1: the protest, told us had been one hundred and twenty

390
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Speaker 1: thousand rand when it was first proposed and recommended by

391
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Speaker 1: the TRC, But Tabo and Beck, the second president after Mandela,

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Speaker 1: had reduced it to thirty thousand, and they were basically

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Speaker 1: saying without any community input, it was just a unilateral decision.

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Speaker 2: And that would also only be for people who gave

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Speaker 2: testimony to the TRC. Correct, where is the country on

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Speaker 2: that in terms of reparations, economic reparations for the economic

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Speaker 2: system under a part EID that has created a two

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Speaker 2: class system that the vast majority is living in poverty

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Speaker 2: and the minority is living well.

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Speaker 1: That's right. That's a great question because one of the

401
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Speaker 1: recommendations fell under a rough category of community reparations. This

402
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Speaker 1: was an idea that you wouldn't necessarily pay individuals a

403
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Speaker 1: lump sum of money, but actually you would address entire communities.

404
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Speaker 1: Outside the Constitutional Court where Noma was protesting, she told

405
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Speaker 1: me there were other promises too that weren't met. Promises

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Speaker 1: to individuals.

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Speaker 4: A victim is going to get education for himself, for Hesan,

408
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Speaker 4: for the children, the gren and Grenn and grandchildren's let

409
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Speaker 4: is the recommended. There will be a proper housing given

410
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Speaker 4: to the victims. There will be also a proper education

411
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Speaker 4: because people were wounded, spirits, lati in their body and

412
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Speaker 4: also mental. But now you did not to call on

413
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Speaker 4: not saying anything even about the education.

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Speaker 1: She said that not only have reparations not been forthcoming,

415
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Speaker 1: but we've had to demonstrate. I mean she's talking about

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Speaker 1: she and all the people out there to hold the

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Speaker 1: A and C government accountable. The Black government of South Africa,

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Speaker 1: who is that government has failed to live up to

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Speaker 1: these these goals that they set for themselves as a nation,

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Speaker 1: and it's time that they give them what they deserve.

421
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Speaker 2: It's so interesting to think about reparations in terms of

422
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Speaker 2: South Africa versus when the conversation comes up here because

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Speaker 2: there's no man. These other protesters are saying, you know,

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Speaker 2: you are us who are in power, and you're still

425
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Speaker 2: not You're still not doing this, like you're still not

426
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Speaker 2: thinking about how to make to to level an imbalanced

427
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Speaker 2: playing field.

428
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Speaker 1: And that's a big part of the frustration that we

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Speaker 1: heard from not just Noma and the protesters there.

430
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Speaker 2: What did you feel like, where did you feel in

431
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Speaker 2: relationship to history? You know, is there some sort of

432
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Speaker 2: analogy you would use to the United States?

433
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Speaker 1: If anything, I thought a lot about what it means

434
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Speaker 1: to live in a country where black people are mayors

435
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Speaker 1: of cities and we have a black Asian vice president

436
00:26:24,356 --> 00:26:26,836
Speaker 1: and we just had a black president. My mind thought

437
00:26:26,876 --> 00:26:29,756
Speaker 1: a lot more about the relationship of black power in

438
00:26:29,796 --> 00:26:33,476
Speaker 1: South Africa to black power in the United States. And

439
00:26:33,636 --> 00:26:38,316
Speaker 1: I felt very disappointed by understanding from Noma and from

440
00:26:38,356 --> 00:26:41,316
Speaker 1: others how the current leadership of the A and C

441
00:26:41,516 --> 00:26:46,156
Speaker 1: and the current president are failing to deal with the

442
00:26:46,196 --> 00:26:47,276
Speaker 1: legacies of a Parteake.

443
00:26:47,876 --> 00:26:50,356
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's talk more about this after the break.

444
00:26:50,476 --> 00:27:08,396
Speaker 2: Let's actually talk about Nelson Mandela. Hey, Khalil, so we

445
00:27:08,436 --> 00:27:11,316
Speaker 2: are back. Yeah. I wanted to talk more about Nelson

446
00:27:11,356 --> 00:27:14,316
Speaker 2: Mandela because in nineteen ninety four when I was there,

447
00:27:14,436 --> 00:27:16,796
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought of him as a hero. He

448
00:27:16,916 --> 00:27:19,356
Speaker 2: had survived twenty seven years in prison and here he

449
00:27:19,476 --> 00:27:23,676
Speaker 2: is running this country and leading it through this peaceful transition.

450
00:27:24,196 --> 00:27:26,436
Speaker 2: And I know he's kind of an icon in the

451
00:27:26,476 --> 00:27:29,316
Speaker 2: symbolic sense that it doesn't have to do with necessary

452
00:27:29,476 --> 00:27:33,276
Speaker 2: his policies. But he has started this thing. He's jump

453
00:27:33,316 --> 00:27:36,716
Speaker 2: started it, and he's everywhere. He is a sort of

454
00:27:36,836 --> 00:27:41,196
Speaker 2: avuncular like grandfatherly figure. You know, he somehow is the

455
00:27:41,196 --> 00:27:45,556
Speaker 2: embodiment of the new country and the sense that a

456
00:27:45,596 --> 00:27:47,636
Speaker 2: new beginning and even of a peaceful new beginning.

457
00:27:48,116 --> 00:27:51,556
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there is something miraculous about Nelson Mandela

458
00:27:51,596 --> 00:27:54,236
Speaker 1: assuming the role as the first president of a free

459
00:27:54,636 --> 00:27:57,916
Speaker 1: South Africa. I mean, I guess the closest equivalent would

460
00:27:57,916 --> 00:28:01,476
Speaker 1: be if Martin Luther King Junior wasn't assassinated in April

461
00:28:01,836 --> 00:28:05,596
Speaker 1: president of the Right and being Richard Brexitt and being

462
00:28:05,636 --> 00:28:08,716
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight. I mean, so, you know,

463
00:28:08,796 --> 00:28:11,196
Speaker 1: this is this is a big deal because even to

464
00:28:11,236 --> 00:28:15,676
Speaker 1: this day, I mean, most Americans myself included, prior to

465
00:28:15,716 --> 00:28:18,716
Speaker 1: going to South Africa, just you know, had this had

466
00:28:18,716 --> 00:28:23,916
Speaker 1: this imagination that Nelson Mandela was a figure beyond reproach

467
00:28:25,116 --> 00:28:29,956
Speaker 1: whose legacy merits all of the adulation that people heap

468
00:28:29,996 --> 00:28:32,956
Speaker 1: on them. But the truth is, the opinion on Nelson

469
00:28:32,956 --> 00:28:36,396
Speaker 1: Mandela has changed. His image has changed over time.

470
00:28:36,876 --> 00:28:40,156
Speaker 2: Interesting because there's always this sense of both reconciliation and

471
00:28:40,196 --> 00:28:43,676
Speaker 2: maybe conciliation in a negative sense, So tell me about it.

472
00:28:44,276 --> 00:28:49,876
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there are statues of Nelson Mandela everywhere. Yeah,

473
00:28:49,876 --> 00:28:54,156
Speaker 1: there are photographs, larger than life photographs in almost every

474
00:28:54,196 --> 00:28:57,676
Speaker 1: public space. In fact, if you go to the Union Buildings,

475
00:28:57,676 --> 00:29:00,636
Speaker 1: which is home to their parliament in Pretoria, which is

476
00:29:00,716 --> 00:29:04,916
Speaker 1: north of Johannesburg, there is a twenty foot tall statue

477
00:29:05,276 --> 00:29:10,076
Speaker 1: of Nelson Mandela with its arms outstretched looking over his country.

478
00:29:10,156 --> 00:29:12,836
Speaker 1: Because the Union Buildings were built basically at the top

479
00:29:12,876 --> 00:29:16,116
Speaker 1: of a hill, and his arms stretched nearly eight feet wide.

480
00:29:16,196 --> 00:29:17,556
Speaker 1: It is breathtaking.

481
00:29:18,356 --> 00:29:20,076
Speaker 2: I just want to say, I think I think of

482
00:29:20,116 --> 00:29:23,436
Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela as both Martin Luther King, and it's more

483
00:29:23,476 --> 00:29:26,516
Speaker 2: like and Abraham Lincoln. You know, he is the president.

484
00:29:27,156 --> 00:29:28,836
Speaker 2: It's all those statues in one.

485
00:29:29,436 --> 00:29:31,716
Speaker 1: In the case of the statue at Union Building, this

486
00:29:31,836 --> 00:29:34,436
Speaker 1: larger than life one, it did remind me of the

487
00:29:34,476 --> 00:29:37,676
Speaker 1: Doctor King monument on the Mall, where he's emerging out

488
00:29:37,716 --> 00:29:40,076
Speaker 1: of a stone of hope. After all, Doctor King is

489
00:29:40,116 --> 00:29:45,636
Speaker 1: the only non president to be memorialized in the nation's

490
00:29:45,676 --> 00:29:50,036
Speaker 1: capital in the National Mall. However, in the same way

491
00:29:50,276 --> 00:29:56,316
Speaker 1: that Doctor King has become a kind of whitewashed historical

492
00:29:56,396 --> 00:30:00,516
Speaker 1: figure who believed only in color blindness and individual merit,

493
00:30:00,876 --> 00:30:06,876
Speaker 1: and whose actual radical commitments to redistribution, to solving for poverty,

494
00:30:06,956 --> 00:30:11,596
Speaker 1: to changing the structure of American societ Nelson Mandela has

495
00:30:11,796 --> 00:30:15,916
Speaker 1: been turned into a similar saintly figure who had no

496
00:30:16,076 --> 00:30:19,956
Speaker 1: radical edges and who ultimately is smiling everywhere you see him.

497
00:30:20,236 --> 00:30:22,876
Speaker 1: In fact, we went to one of the wealthiest suburbs

498
00:30:22,916 --> 00:30:26,356
Speaker 1: in Johannesburg. It is home to more millionaires it's called Santon,

499
00:30:26,796 --> 00:30:31,036
Speaker 1: than any square mile on the African continent. And there

500
00:30:31,076 --> 00:30:34,476
Speaker 1: there's this massive mall called the Nelson Mandela Square. It's

501
00:30:34,476 --> 00:30:36,996
Speaker 1: actually a really beautiful mall. The man I have to

502
00:30:36,996 --> 00:30:42,876
Speaker 1: tell you. Down the hallways of this mall, you see

503
00:30:42,956 --> 00:30:46,796
Speaker 1: images of life size images of Nelson Mandela smiling at you,

504
00:30:47,276 --> 00:30:49,716
Speaker 1: almost in a coonish manner. I mean, I hate to

505
00:30:49,716 --> 00:30:52,196
Speaker 1: say it that way, but that's what it felt like.

506
00:30:52,316 --> 00:30:56,156
Speaker 1: It felt like his image was being used to sign

507
00:30:56,236 --> 00:31:00,076
Speaker 1: off on like hyper capitalism, like you know, make Nelson

508
00:31:00,116 --> 00:31:02,436
Speaker 1: Mandela prout, spend as much of your money in this

509
00:31:02,516 --> 00:31:06,076
Speaker 1: mall as possible. And that was deeply disturbing to me.

510
00:31:06,956 --> 00:31:11,916
Speaker 2: Hmm. And even when he got out of prison, I mean,

511
00:31:11,916 --> 00:31:13,996
Speaker 2: he had been he was in prison so long, and

512
00:31:14,076 --> 00:31:19,316
Speaker 2: he was he was old. He had this this grandfatherly manner.

513
00:31:20,076 --> 00:31:24,076
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well this brings up a really interesting point because

514
00:31:24,196 --> 00:31:27,396
Speaker 1: I was able to talk to see young people and

515
00:31:27,476 --> 00:31:32,436
Speaker 1: I asked them, in particular, how do young people understand

516
00:31:32,436 --> 00:31:37,476
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela's legacy? Uh? And dude, they were like, they

517
00:31:37,516 --> 00:31:40,916
Speaker 1: were really critical, I mean so much so that they

518
00:31:41,156 --> 00:31:44,196
Speaker 1: they basically said that Nelson Mandela sold out the country

519
00:31:44,276 --> 00:31:48,356
Speaker 1: when he negotiated the post apartment apartheid agreements with the

520
00:31:48,396 --> 00:31:53,116
Speaker 1: Afrikana Party. The generational divide, you can tell what generations

521
00:31:53,116 --> 00:31:55,756
Speaker 1: I want blom to how much they actually admire him. Yeah,

522
00:31:56,156 --> 00:31:59,916
Speaker 1: the younger you get so what so what not messed

523
00:31:59,916 --> 00:32:02,236
Speaker 1: with him at all? His Rainbow Nation.

524
00:32:02,476 --> 00:32:04,156
Speaker 2: You can see it was a it was a wrong.

525
00:32:05,796 --> 00:32:08,596
Speaker 1: The younger generation, they just straight up see it and

526
00:32:08,596 --> 00:32:12,636
Speaker 1: they call it, especially the two thousand kids. Gensens are

527
00:32:12,716 --> 00:32:16,676
Speaker 1: savage and they call him Nelli M. And you know

528
00:32:16,676 --> 00:32:20,876
Speaker 1: how Africa in respect is Nelli M Nellie M. Yes,

529
00:32:21,116 --> 00:32:24,116
Speaker 1: what does that mean kind of a well, kind of

530
00:32:24,156 --> 00:32:27,356
Speaker 1: a euphemism for like some dude, right, like, oh yeah,

531
00:32:27,356 --> 00:32:30,876
Speaker 1: that's Nelly M. Nelson Mandela. In other words, she was saying,

532
00:32:30,876 --> 00:32:34,316
Speaker 1: for ging Zers, they don't see him as a revered

533
00:32:34,436 --> 00:32:38,196
Speaker 1: historical figure. In a way, the failures of the TRC

534
00:32:38,916 --> 00:32:42,316
Speaker 1: have come home to roost in a younger generation who

535
00:32:42,556 --> 00:32:47,236
Speaker 1: are very skeptical of the ruling party, the African National Congress,

536
00:32:47,596 --> 00:32:51,356
Speaker 1: and they're skeptical of all of the presidents, including Nelson Mandela,

537
00:32:51,396 --> 00:32:55,636
Speaker 1: who they essentially accuse rightly so, of truly a failure

538
00:32:55,676 --> 00:32:59,236
Speaker 1: to deliver. And just to make sure that I wasn't

539
00:32:59,276 --> 00:33:02,356
Speaker 1: hearing this from just you know, kind of radical young people,

540
00:33:03,116 --> 00:33:06,756
Speaker 1: I also asked our host, who's a generation older, what

541
00:33:06,876 --> 00:33:08,956
Speaker 1: to make of what they call the failure of the

542
00:33:09,196 --> 00:33:12,516
Speaker 1: Rainbow Nation. And here's what he said, No one cares

543
00:33:12,556 --> 00:33:19,956
Speaker 1: allan if you critique that, yes, we know it failed.

544
00:33:20,076 --> 00:33:25,436
Speaker 3: So what so because we've spoken and we've spoken nothing.

545
00:33:25,796 --> 00:33:29,076
Speaker 3: It's it's happening. So what's the point of saying, does

546
00:33:29,156 --> 00:33:32,316
Speaker 3: people did us wrong? I mean, what you've done, what

547
00:33:32,356 --> 00:33:36,076
Speaker 3: you're seeing now, it's a proper demonstration of why the

548
00:33:36,116 --> 00:33:40,996
Speaker 3: truth and reconciation permission never both foot.

549
00:33:40,436 --> 00:33:45,076
Speaker 1: The inability of this country, through this democracy that's been

550
00:33:45,076 --> 00:33:47,636
Speaker 1: held up in the world as like a shiny example

551
00:33:48,076 --> 00:33:51,676
Speaker 1: of going from you know, a terrible system of oppression

552
00:33:51,956 --> 00:33:56,076
Speaker 1: to having one of the best constitutions on paper, and

553
00:33:56,196 --> 00:33:58,476
Speaker 1: yet people don't believe in it anymore.

554
00:33:59,396 --> 00:34:01,196
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you got to go there and do this.

555
00:34:02,236 --> 00:34:08,476
Speaker 2: I'm jealous. And to think about this being there, I

556
00:34:08,476 --> 00:34:13,596
Speaker 2: don't know, years into this democracy and to see it

557
00:34:13,636 --> 00:34:16,356
Speaker 2: at this moment. Maybe I'll ask you one last question,

558
00:34:16,396 --> 00:34:21,356
Speaker 2: because we started up by talking what you would bring

559
00:34:21,396 --> 00:34:24,316
Speaker 2: back to the United States from this trip and think

560
00:34:24,356 --> 00:34:30,036
Speaker 2: about our country and think about memorializing and so this

561
00:34:30,116 --> 00:34:33,356
Speaker 2: young democracy and our much older one. What is it

562
00:34:33,356 --> 00:34:35,196
Speaker 2: that you brought back? What is the lesson that you

563
00:34:35,236 --> 00:34:36,996
Speaker 2: think you learned from going to South Africa.

564
00:34:37,596 --> 00:34:40,196
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. So I think it's pretty

565
00:34:40,196 --> 00:34:45,276
Speaker 1: straightforward that truth telling in many different ways has to happen.

566
00:34:45,556 --> 00:34:49,916
Speaker 1: And although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a limited

567
00:34:49,956 --> 00:34:52,876
Speaker 1: process and didn't tell the entire truth of a Parte

568
00:34:52,876 --> 00:34:55,876
Speaker 1: eight only told a limited truth of a particular kind

569
00:34:55,916 --> 00:34:59,276
Speaker 1: of political violence. The truth telling that needs to happen,

570
00:34:59,596 --> 00:35:02,356
Speaker 1: both in South Africa and in the United States is

571
00:35:02,396 --> 00:35:06,556
Speaker 1: the whole story. It's about colonialism. South Africa also hit

572
00:35:06,636 --> 00:35:09,996
Speaker 1: chattel slavery. All of these things to be told in

573
00:35:10,036 --> 00:35:12,716
Speaker 1: a fulsome way, both in that country and ours, in

574
00:35:12,796 --> 00:35:15,556
Speaker 1: order to even begin to have a conversation about the future.

575
00:35:16,076 --> 00:35:17,876
Speaker 1: And then the second thing, which is the one we've

576
00:35:17,876 --> 00:35:21,436
Speaker 1: been talking about about reparations, is that you really can't

577
00:35:21,836 --> 00:35:25,676
Speaker 1: have truth telling without some form of reparations, without some

578
00:35:25,876 --> 00:35:30,276
Speaker 1: form of redistribution, because once people understand the fullness of

579
00:35:30,316 --> 00:35:34,396
Speaker 1: the harm done to people, the oppression, the centuries of it,

580
00:35:34,836 --> 00:35:39,556
Speaker 1: then their actual lived experiences have to be made better,

581
00:35:39,876 --> 00:35:42,716
Speaker 1: have to be made whole. There's no way around it.

582
00:35:43,196 --> 00:35:45,236
Speaker 1: One last story, I just have to tell you this

583
00:35:45,316 --> 00:35:48,596
Speaker 1: because it was one of the last things I heard,

584
00:35:48,836 --> 00:35:52,156
Speaker 1: So I asked, like, where do white people sit in

585
00:35:52,196 --> 00:35:57,236
Speaker 1: this story, Like, do white people do reconciliation work? Are

586
00:35:57,236 --> 00:35:59,916
Speaker 1: they learning these histories in their schools, because a lot

587
00:35:59,956 --> 00:36:02,596
Speaker 1: of white children go to private schools, not the public schools.

588
00:36:03,076 --> 00:36:06,636
Speaker 1: And overwhelmingly, people said, by and large, white South Africans

589
00:36:06,716 --> 00:36:10,436
Speaker 1: have opted out of telling the truth about a partake.

590
00:36:10,756 --> 00:36:12,516
Speaker 1: And so as we were leaving, I heard from this

591
00:36:12,636 --> 00:36:15,356
Speaker 1: white guy who we were interviewing who said that basically

592
00:36:15,396 --> 00:36:18,196
Speaker 1: he does the work of reconciliation with white people today

593
00:36:18,236 --> 00:36:21,596
Speaker 1: and it's really hard, but he is committed to bringing

594
00:36:21,676 --> 00:36:24,796
Speaker 1: white people to the table and white people along, no

595
00:36:24,836 --> 00:36:26,716
Speaker 1: matter how heart or how long it takes.

596
00:36:26,836 --> 00:36:31,836
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, country like that, everyone becomes implicated in the atrocity.

597
00:36:32,916 --> 00:36:35,676
Speaker 2: Thank you, man. I'm glad we finally had this conversation now,

598
00:36:35,756 --> 00:36:38,156
Speaker 2: so now we can talk about it all the time.

599
00:36:38,236 --> 00:36:42,316
Speaker 2: Now I can look at photos. Now I can well

600
00:36:43,156 --> 00:36:45,636
Speaker 2: and maybe maybe we'll maybe we'll get to travel together.

601
00:36:45,996 --> 00:36:46,516
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope.

602
00:36:46,556 --> 00:36:47,676
Speaker 2: So all right, love you.

603
00:36:47,756 --> 00:36:55,636
Speaker 1: Love you men. Some of My Best Friends Are is

604
00:36:55,676 --> 00:36:59,076
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and

605
00:36:59,156 --> 00:37:02,276
Speaker 1: hosted by me Khalil Dubron Muhammad and my best friend

606
00:37:02,436 --> 00:37:03,036
Speaker 1: Ben Austin.

607
00:37:03,276 --> 00:37:07,156
Speaker 2: It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.

608
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Speaker 2: It's edited by Sarah Nick with help from Keishel Williams.

609
00:37:11,316 --> 00:37:15,116
Speaker 2: Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our managing producer

610
00:37:15,276 --> 00:37:17,116
Speaker 2: is Constanza Guyardo.

611
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613
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