“SAME AND DIFFERENT: Returning to South Africa” (COMMENTARY)

By Sienna Reynaga

Sixteen years separates South Africa from Apartheid, yet color remains a dominant dividing point of a country that has branded itself on progressive diversity.  Being here during the world's celebration - The World Cup - has showcased the country, as host, in its struggle to introduce its newly defined "integrated" culture to the world.

Growing up as a Mexican, Indian, Black in California has provided me an interesting perspective on race, culture and identity.  I cook Mexican, I am fascinated by Indian and I appear black.  At age 13 I counted the pictures in my Mexican/Indian grandmother's house convinced that she loved me less because I was too dark ... in normal teenage struggles with my mother I was convinced I had a "black" mother somewhere out there that would get it ... identity has been my life’s curiosity.

So with that perspective I came to South Africa.  The white South Africans notoriously have not followed football, as we call it here, and have separated themselves from sport that is glorified by people from the slums.  At the same time, the black South Africans understand they are shut out.  With a 6.7% internet usage rate, they were not able to access tickets to watch their heroes play in action.  It is a bizarre dynamic.

Struggling for years with the term "African American" I look at people with European heritage deny the continent and it is tragic.  They are African!  Watching the Brazil v. Cote d'Ivoire game, White South Africans actively cheered against the African team.  Why?  It is an endless cycle of denial and lack of pride in the continent.

The service here, predominately by Black South Africans is atrocious and they don't seem to help themselves from the outside view.  They seem to be in this mode of ineptitude.  The White managers almost encourage it and with their low expectations, keep their Black employees down below.  I struggle because I constantly am considering issues of “same and different” - and wonder who is helping or hindering who.

The places I like are filled with people that look different than me.  The people that look like me are not doing what I like.  Are our differences genetic or otherwise?  The glory of the World Cup is not touching the people in the township, the average South African worker (80% of the population) and instead is creating a party atmosphere for the 20% who are seeking to be acknowledged on the worldwide globetrotter scene.

Has South Africa really opened up since Apartheid?  Not yet.  The five years since my last visit here is a noticeable change in tone.  The hope that I saw in 2005 is now replaced by the lethargy found in American urban centers.  Crime seems easier than an education, doing the least possible to get by seems like the best way - it is sad.  The World Cup has meant a longer shift for most - not a new opportunity.  Weeks from now the South Africans will be left with the same issues of corruption and division they had a month ago.  So what is the benefit?

Will we all come back to visit this beautiful land?  Do we all just sit back and watch the whites and blacks continue to settle in to their expected roles?  There is no clear answer a week in to the trip and the reality is you have a nation that is suffering behind a facade that is the World Cup.  We can't leave when the games leave - we must use this country as the springboard to saving a continent that is seemingly left behind in the global shift towards the world being flat.

Beyond the games and hoots of the vuvuzelas this is predominant on my mind.  From the first World Cup on African soil, I write.

---Sienna Reynaga is the Founder of the SOLHO GROUP, a marketing  firm specializing in next generation companies.

*THE PERSPECTIVES OF HUMNEWS CONTRIBUTORS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT REPRESENT IN PART OR IN WHOLE, THE VIEWS OF ITS EDITORS.