Intellectuals in a cold climate, South African society

[blpurdom]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:
> Ironically enough (especially considering recent events), there 
> was, and to some extent is, a strong prejudice against white South 
> Africans in Australia.  At 15, my peers harangued me endlessly 
> about writing to an Afrikaner penfriend, accusing me 
> of "supporting Apartheid" (see my October post "Rant on Overdog 
> Racism").  The people who lived across the road from us when I was 
> a child were white South Africans, and told us some people refused 
> to associate with them.

The only white South Africans I have known were reviled and 
ostracized by other whites in South Africa for living in a black 
township and inviting blacks to live with them.  This lovely couple 
came to live here in Philadelphia while one of them was doing 
advanced university work and they attended our church while they 
were here.  It was during this time that Mandela was freed and 
became president.  

Later, when other national elections were held, a man from our 
church traveled to South Africa as part of an international group 
that was going to "observe," and he said he probably wouldn't have 
done it if our friends H. & C. hadn't been here, acquainting us more 
intimately with what life was really like in South Africa.  We sent 
him off to strains of the choir singing "Siya Hamba," a South-
African song (alternating with the English transation, "Walking in 
the Light of God").

Now our friends H. & C. have a friend living with them who is black 
and suffering from AIDS, and our congregation has raised the funds 
to send her daughter to a private day school in her township which 
will give her a slight advantage compared to the usual township 
schools.  We get regular letters from this wonderful girl, who 
adores her uniforms, her school and the penfriends she has in the US 
who are happy to help her have a better life (she wants to be a 
teacher!).  The kids in the Sunday School write to her about what 
American schools are like.  I would love to go to South Africa 
someday to visit these friends in their own home; they've been a 
huge inspiration to me and my husband in the importance of working 
for justice and peace whether or not you're the one suffering the 
injustice.  King said we are all interconnected, and it's true.  Too 
bad more people don't realize that.

--Barb 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Psych/
http://schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb