May Day

Here in South Africa, as in other parts of the world, May Day (May 1st) is a national holiday honoring the worker. It is a pep rally to voice frustrations at unlivable wages, unemployment, etc and, alternating, believing in better days ahead. I attended the May Day rally for the province of Mpumalanga which chose Bethal, my home town, as the location of the event. Why Bethal? A sleepy little farming and mining community stuck in the middle of nowhere? I met my friends, Mavis and Pastor M, who took me under their wings for the day. We arrived at the high school rugby field in time to watch the streams of busses off-loading participants arriving from hundreds of miles away. I guessed that maybe 5000 people struggled to find space on the field to see the stage where the Premier of Mpumalanga and Cyril Ramaphosa, a respected veteran of the “struggle” were the guest speakers. The energy level was high, with call and response of “viva COSATU (the trade union umbrella organization), long live.” My friends remarked that the scene reminded them of the many rallies they attended previous to 1994, protesting Apartheid and the feeling of solidarity that it engendered. As I listened to the speeches, some in English, I realized why the organizers had picked Bethal as the venue.

The Premier explained that although Bethal was not in the history books (yet?), it had an important place in the “struggle heritage.” As he continued, I realized that the pieces of the puzzle I had struggled with understanding for two years began to fall into place…...the snickering responses when I mentioned that I lived in Bethal…..the silence…. and the shaking heads. How did so many people, especially Black South Africans know Bethal? When someone would finally explain their reactions to my “I live in Bethal,” I was given bits of information about instances of suffering and vile treatment of farm workers in Bethal that was truly unbelievable. Certainly they were urban legends or exaggerations at the very least? Then the Premier spoke of the “Potato Boycott.” Evidently, 2008 is the 50th anniversary of a national boycott of the potatoes grown around Bethal fifty years ago. When I relayed some of the grotesque stories I had heard about Bethal to Mavis and Pastor M, they confirmed that the stories were true….stories of finding human skulls and thumbs while harvesting potatoes.…of farm workers eating baboons to stave off starvation…..farm workers and prisoners from the town’s prison buried in fields….slavery.

History is a funny thing. From history a country identifies itself. It provides the momentum for decisions going forward. It determines which group or individual is considered great and who the villains are (was Nelson Mandela a terrorist or a leader of the liberation of South Africa?). And who gets to write the history determines which group holds power……I know that I am straying from storytelling just now but living in South Africa has made me look at the relationships of history and power in a way that I have never done before. My Black South African friends share a history and my White South African friends share a different history… and yet they both live in the same country? When school children visit little Bethal Museum, they learn nothing about the Potato Boycott that drew thousands of South Africans to Bethal today. It shares nothing about 80% of the population of Bethal at all?

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I am reminded of the gift of time I have had to reflect on life and the world in the past two years. Being away from my own home has created the space for introspection and observation. The result is perspective and wisdom gained that I couldn’t dream of obtaining in the midst of regular life at home.