Parallels, Pt. 1

Once upon a time, white men from Europe sailed some boats down to southern Africa.


The white men found that there were already people in Africa, who had dark skin and lived in harmony with the land. But the white men wanted the land for themselves, and they knew it just wouldn't do to have these black men running about, so they killed some and chased some into the desert, but a bunch of other black men showed up, so there wasn't much the white men could do about it.

So a few years passed, and after the Portuguese and Dutch (and some French and German folks as well) had their go at the land, the British showed up and took it, which is basically what they used to do all the time.

When the old Dutch people (who started calling themselves Afrikaners) decided they weren't happy about the British pushing them around, they fought a couple of bloody wars, but they lost and the British kept the land, but they stayed good mates (sort of). They even fought wars as pals against the baddies in Europe and Asia.

Later on down the line, the Afrikaners won the land back from the British in an election (sort of), and the Afrikaners started changing the laws.

But the Afrikaners weren't the only people living on the land in South Africa. Remember all the black people? There were loads and loads of them! And Indian people, too, and this mix of Malaysian people with all the other races that they decided to call Coloured people.

The Afrikaners didn't really want to share all their land and stuff, though, since they'd worked so hard for it and had just got it back from the British. Also, they saw that black people in the rest of Africa were starting to chase the white men out, since the land belonged to the black people in the first place, so the Afrikaners started this thing called Apartheid.

Apartheid pretty much tried to squish all non-white races in South Africa by keeping them in designated areas and controlling their education and taking their culture and killing them if they stepped out of line.

This Apartheid thingy lasted a long, long time, until people from other countries and people from South Africa, led my some fellas named Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Desmond Tutu (and some of their mates - not all at the same time, though), forced the Boers to make some pretty big changes.

Then South Africa held its first real democratic election, in which all races were allowed to vote, and Nelson Mandela (and his crew, the ANC) won! And they wrote this new constitution, too! What a day that was, right?

Anyways, that was a couple of years ago, and now everyone loves each other and holds hands and sings songs!

There have been some weird things going on, though.

This one black guy, Andries Tatane, was killed a while ago at this rally, and everyone said these policemen did it, but the judge said they were innocent, so it's kind of a mystery how Mr. Tatane died in the first place. I mean, we have the whole ordeal on tape, but the judge obviously knows better than we do.

And then all these platinum miners got a bit peeved because they get paid (basically) next to nothing for doing all this hard work, so they went on strike and started shouting and waving signs and stuff, but then all these policemen and security guards tried to stop them and in the end a whole bunch of people were dead.

And then the current president, Jacob Zuma, was all like, "I hate gay people! Walking your dog is for white people! Women should have more babies! If you have AIDS, just take a shower," or something like that. And then he and his buddies (Nelson Mandela's old ANC) decided to write something called the "Secrecy Bill," which pretty much controls government info so they can keep secrets and not tattle and stuff like that.

Also, lots of the schools in South Africa aren't really that great. And most people live in these crowded neighborhoods with bad plumbing called townships, where crime and drugs and stuff are pretty bad. And also a whole bunch of people have HIV here, which is pretty sad.

But, like I said, it's all sunshine and rainbows, really. Everybody's happy!