Current questions: Thinking psychologically

I'm beginning to wonder...

What are the psychological implications of being forced into exile and then returning back home?

Why did people (South Africans in general, as well as students, protesters, antiapartheids, etc.) leave?

Where did they go?

What did those area citizens think of them?

How did they personally change while they were away from their native land?

Did they continue to choose to speak their language(s) of choice?

What emotions did they feel when they returned home?

How did they know it was safe to return home?

What was it like to be charged and then have the charges dropped due to the “insufficient evidence” that so many had?

How did “home” change upon arrival?

Was it what they perceived?

Did aspects of the language change?

An Important Correction

I originally posted this in a group folder on 20 June 2008, referencing a presentation I had made the day before:

Over the past twenty-four hours, I have been contemplating my response to Erica's inquiry of the Soweto uprisings. Doing some internet tracking, I feel that this is indeed a much better reflection on 16 June 1976. The important correction is that the students were not marching onward to the government building in Pretoria, but rather, to Orlando Stadium.

Congregating to their final destination, and taking different routes at the site of police blockades, were thousands of students and their supportive teachers, teachers who sided with students that I believe to have demonstrated a consciousness of peace and justice. Along the way, students held up signs declaring the end to Afrikaans, and many students--as well as rising anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu--did believe Afrikaans to be the language of the oppressor. Indeed, English was seen as a way to communicate outside of South Africa. It was the rising language of commerce and communication, just as we see it today. So, when I also made mention of Spanish, Japanese, etc., being our "Afrikaans," I intended to drive the fact that any language other than English--the language we are familiar with and use in our daily communications--would most likely be seen as invasive and unwanted, if any other language was forced upon us as Afrikaans was on these students. Such an action may be seen as restrictive in this sense, as opposed to opening greater paths for communication. Moreover, the Afrikaans Medium Decree may also have been seen as a way to bring back more attention to the language that was often used in government but less in these educational settings, i.e. Afrikaans.

Despite the cries for peace and justice, and even the underlying call for the end of apartheid, the events of 16 June 1976 are so difficult to fathom. These students--children, brothers/sisters, best friends, perhaps even only family--faced the horrors of evil, and in my eyes, the epitome of over-the-top repressive behaviour that many adults had to face throughout different points in history: attack dogs, tear gas, guns, death, struggle, neglect, pain, sorrow, suffering. If we imagine this ever happening to our youngest of generations today, it would be hard to do, to contextualise the experience of the Soweto students.

So, in short, the students were marching a peaceful march to a protest rally (let us be further mindful that these students were also organised under student leadership) and not directly to the steps of the government halls. Try to fathom a brutally devastating reaction to one's resistance to a government practice. Is it truly possible to deal with a language issue and language policies when the other side is holding a gun instead of using words?

With this in mind (and especially now that I've definitely thought about this particular area of my research more closely), the Soweto uprisings are but a small sector of what I want to focus on this summer. Even more so, I hope to be able to have the chance to do my own first-hand account research via interviewing when I get to South Africa in the fall.

Sala kahle (Stay well)!

ps/ Alongside general info from Wikipedia, here are some other sites I found worthwhile to read in regard to the Soweto uprisings. The last source is a cool interactive map that shows the different routes leading up to Orlando Stadium. (I don't think it works in Mozilla.)

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Africa/04/kistner/kistner.htm
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/june16/extract-soweto-uprising.html#events
http://www.sowetouprisings.com/site/

Poem

I recently came across this poem in my reading that I need to post now, perhaps just for my future referencing.

"Nineteen seventy-six
You stand accused of deaths
Imprisonment
Exiles
and detentions.
You lost the battle
You
were not revolutionary
Enough
We do not boast about you
Year of fire, year of ash."

--Oupa Thando Mthimkulu, regarding people's feelings of the Soweto uprising
Originally printed in Staffrider (Johannesburg), 7:3,4 (1988).
Reprinted in A History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson (pg. 238).

FURSCA - 1st entry

Molo! or Molweni! (depending on how many people are reading this right now)/[, or I suppose] Hallo! depending on who's reading this right now...

This is my first entry for my FURSCA summer, and I didn't quite realise how exciting and overwhelming everything is until this very moment. As I'm typing this intro, my mind is trying to recall everything I've done in the past few days.

Well, I arrived here this past Friday, so I suppose I'm still adjusting to the FURSCA lifestyle while everyone is assumably getting into the groove of things. In retrospect, I find it funny how I was greeted to Albion by a weekend full of storms and even a day without power. In any case, the weekend transition was great; it was really nice to see friends and colleagues from the past two years, and equally as nice to be meeting many more professors that I otherwise would never have the chance to meet. My host family's really great, and I'm excited to be back in Albion. (I'm also very happy that Rafa won his fourth straight Roland Garros. How I wish I was on the crushed brick of Paris right now.... Oh well, the Albion courts are great, too.)

After my orientation meeting with my advisor on Friday, I felt like I knew what I was doing. However, when he, another student and I came back from our first research trip to Michigan State University, I felt a bit overwhelmed. Anyone who's familiar with my research will know that most of my research interests these past couple of years has focused on the Philippines, France, and/or Catholicism. This time around, I'd say my focus is somewhat new-- and a great challenge.

In the fall, I'll be going to South Africa. From what I can tell, I'll be taking a month of classes in Cape Town, and then do a two month independent study project, potentially outside of Cape Town. I've already submitted a plan as to what I want to do my ISP on to the programme supervisors. Essentially, I'll be continuing my FURSCA work. With that said, I feel like I can explain my FURSCA project a bit.

The title of the project itself is "Linguistic Apartheid: South African Lingual Identity". I'm looking at pre-, during- and post-apartheid South African linguistic identity. As this is definitely covering a lot of territory, I'm in a constant state of trying to key in on a few topics, though I think that'll come as I near the completion of my research before writing my thesis. Since most of my research so far has centred around the Philippines, France, and/or Catholicism, I'm currently in the stage of bringing myself to that level in terms of my knowledge about South Africa. As I'm doing this, I'm trying to figure out what I really want to study. At this point, I'm thinking more of the "why" as opposed to the "what," truly making this an IS/Ethnic Studies kind of thing rather than a lot of history. Also, I'm thinking of spending a majority of my summer analysing past interviews and getting a grasp of the Soweto uprisings in 1976. The general thought coming into my project was that if Spanish reached the same level as Afrikaans and was mandated by the government to be an educating language alongside English, would American students uprise just as Soweto student rose against their government when it was declared that Afrikaans (the language seen as closely tied to apartheid) would be an educating alongside English? My answer would be no. Thinking into the future, my big question for my theisis is how post-colonial Africa views language and how it affects their identity. It means something to me to know French, understand Tagalog, know bits and pieces of German, Italian and Spanish, recently interested in Japanese, and will know Xhosa...so what does it mean for South Africans, Cameroon, Burundi, etc?

So, in summary, that's that, I suppose. I've just finished working with a single chapter in an in-depth sort of mode. The process is kind of complicated so it's taking me a while to get used to it (since I kind of just made it up a few days ago) and which would explain why it's taken me maybe about 5-6 hours just to read about 30 or so pages. After working on this project for essentially two years, I surely hope that this will work and benefit me in the end.

Before I close and begin the next chapter of my reading, I just wanted to mention (for my memory's sake, at least) that I'm both excited and surprised with the number of people who just seem to come out of nowhere and can provide tons of help with my project. It's simply amazing to be working with the connections that Albion and so many others have to offer.

Sala kahle!/Tosiens!

ps/ For the record, I'm learning Xhosa, not Afrikaans. :) If I do include Afrikaans in my entries, it'll be separated from Xhosa with a "/", as I have done here.