This is a guest post written by Augsburg College student, JD Mechelke, after two聽months on CGEE Southern Africa program.聽
My eyes began to open, being disturbed by the slight shaft of light poking past the peaks of the mountains around our two story double decker sleeper bus. We were on the road all night traveling from Bloemfontein to Cape Town. I dug through my backpack and found my phone. It was a little past 5am. As the light behind the mountains grew I began to more accurately assess the highway we were traveling down. Though our bus was massive and the thruway vast, we were at the mercy of the mountains. But moments earlier, my conscience was somewhere else鈥�
He was standing in front of them; the poor black miners. He was draped in a green blanket. I could hear his voice as it made its way through the police line. I could not make out the vowels and consonants. His tone was deliberate but not violent. It was mournful, passionate, resolute. The sounds I hear made it clear that peace and negotiation were his motives. I saw the smoke, but did not hear the triggers. Though I could not hear the man in green before, I could hear him now; more clearly than gun shots: 鈥淲e are not fighting.鈥� I involuntarily watched the scene as 112 miners were shot down. But in the moment after, I was looking down on his dead body. I counted 14 in all. The government owned lead had mutilated his face, neck, and legs. I could still hear him screaming, 鈥淲e are not fighting.鈥� The fluorescent green of his blanket had been taken over by a liquid crimson.
On either side of us, spectacular curves of brown and green earth shot up, as if they connected us to the heavens. There were moments it was hard to see the crimson and velvet sunrise. We were nothing.
Once the peaks opened up and made a valley, we drove past vineyards. My R.A. Attila compared the sight to his time in rural Italy. God, it was beautiful. Who needs coffee when you have a landscape like this to wake up to?
Later that morning we got to Cape Town. The city was more beautiful than the ride that morning. When most people think of countries in sub-saharan Africa, and even Southern Africa, they tend to assume people live in grass huts in the savannah with lions as pets. Cape Town would give these people a surprise. It looked like some paradise, a shinning city on a hill. Her beaches made me feel like I could spend a lifetime watching the waves.
But again, as I saw in Jo鈥檅urg, I saw the same here: contrast. Drive just a few miles out of the party paradise city and you鈥檒l come to what they call the Cape Flats. The Cape Flats are where the people who are black were corralled during apartheid. Even though the apartheid regime has fallen, the 鈥渆conomic apartheid鈥� has kept them there.
The third largest township (township meaning black suburb) in South Africa was what made up the Cape Flats: called Khayelitsha. Inside the informal settlements of Khayelitsha, the living conditions made it hard not to avert your eyes. There was one chemical toilet per 10 families. The government was supposed to clean them twice a week, but it was surprising if it happened once a month. Because the bathrooms are usually long walks from people鈥檚 homes, women are constantly raped and robbed on the way. Four rape cases are 鈥渞eported鈥� everyday. Victims of rape are stigmatized, accused saying, 鈥測ou liked it.鈥� In many instances, if the woman reports the rape, the perpetrator kills the victim. If the perpetrator receives AIDs from the victim, the perpetrator then 鈥渂lames鈥� the victim for the disease and has killed the victim afterwards in some instances. And if you are a lesbian woman, your likelihood of being raped by men is even higher: they rape lesbians in the name of 鈥渃orrecting them.鈥� Through the shacks of the flats, some speak up. Pastor Xola Skosana is one such person.
Pastor Skosana is not afraid to be vocal about the injustices of the Cape Flats. To bring attention to what a white supremacist, unregulated capitalistic system has brought to his township, he leads his congregation in walking around with banners saying 鈥淲elcome to Hell鈥� on Easter mornings. In his advocacy for those living with HIV, he has boldly proclaimed that, 鈥淛esus is HIV Positive.鈥� Skosana鈥檚 messages of Jesus鈥� life with the poor, especially people who are black, barley surviving in a system of white supremacy and white privilege, seems to be in harmony with messages I鈥檝e encountered before: the Liberation Theology I鈥檇 seen in El Salvador, the Queer Theology I鈥檇 learned from a lesbian theologian, and the Theology of the Cross I had read in Luther鈥檚 Freedom of a Christian.
Jesus is a lesbian woman enduring 鈥渃orrective rape.鈥� Jesus is a church janitor, who wears everything he owns. Jesus is a gay man in Windhoek, hated by his dying father for who he loves. Jesus is the woman of Katutura, living with HIV. Jesus is draped in a fluorescent green blanket, taken over by a liquid crimson.