As our trip winds down the last day in Johannesburg, it is difficult to believe that in less than 36 hours, our class will be landing right back where we started 22 days ago. Processing the idea of heading back to Elon is a difficult thing, as I and many of my classmates gear up for (or dread) the last semester of college. I’m having a bit of nostalgia not just for the incredible moments this January, but also those I experienced last January traveling through China. In retrospect, I was surprised at the many parallels I found between the two countries that are so different at face value.
The most striking difference I saw between the two countries was racially rooted. As I stepped off of the plane into the city of Cape Town, my eyes were greeted with every color of skin: this country truly fits its Rainbow Nation title. In stark contrast, I entered the city of Beijing and found myself in a country where not only is the population wholly Chinese, more than 99% of it is Han Chinese, with other Chinese minorities making up less than 1%. En route to Lhasa, Tibet, I saw firsthand the outright discrimination against Tibetans by the Han Chinese officials, as they frisked each and every Tibetan on our train while checking only the leader of our group’s passport and allowing all 27 of us Americans to go un-checked. China’s skepticism of its own people reminded me a great deal of the internal division instituted by the white apartheid system in South Africa.
Despite over 80% of the South African population identifying as African, this majority was oppressed by the white minority (Statistics South Africa). Through leaders of dissenting parties like Mandela’s involvement with the ANC, the African majority was able to liberate blacks from white oppression, demanding and winning equality upon the constitution’s ratification in 1996. In South Africa today, cultural and racial differences are now celebrated. Despite the young country of South Africa still working towards equality for those in all walks of life, I see that the ancient empire of China has a lot to catch up on.
Culturally, the people of both South Africa and China share very vast and traditionally rooted heritages. Each society values the importance of elders and the family in decision making and emphasizes community rather than individualism. Their greatest difference is the way each society goes about making change. In South Africa, the government’s outright discrimination caused a rebellion among the black South Africans, with intentions of non-violence that escalated to violence as the situation required it. In China, the oppressive government similarly blocks news of all rebellions to its citizens, seen in many cases of Tibetan Buddhist immolations. Tibetan Buddhists are forbidden by their religion from any form of violence against others, so their greatest tool of rebellion against the oppressive Chinese system is to burn themselves alive. While South Africa was able to drive change through group protest, large-scale group rebellions are a step that China’s people will likely never take. While South Africa was able to achieve a relatively fast change, China’s evolution will be slow, likely taking decades or more.
While in China, I learned how kind, caring and calm the people of the nation are. In South Africa, I learned and appreciated the spirit of resilience and optimism among those formerly oppressed. As it did in South Africa, can the international community play a bigger role in liberating the Chinese people from an oppressive and stifling government?
In South Africa, the apartheid system was dismantled heavily due to international pressure and divestment of trading partners. The country’s economy was crippled as other nations saw the oppression the white majority was inflicting upon the majority of the nation. While divesting in even a small nation like South Africa was a struggle during apartheid, divestment in China today is virtually out of the question. The international community relies heavily on labor and goods produced in the country, often turning a blind eye to the human rights violations occurring there. With nearly 90% of computers and other essential consumer products made in China, this type of international pressure against these violations could cripple the rest of the world, too (The Atlantic). The question of how to help those institutionally oppressed in China and all corners of the world remains unanswered.
“Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.” -Nelson Mandela
