brothers and sisters through the game

The neon lights of the clock read 4:30 when I first woke up naturally this morning. Stupid jetlag. I made myself “sleep” for three more hours before I got up and went for a run. Having been on this continent for over 24 hours I was ready to get lost. I successfully did so by weaving through back streets and ignoring street signs. Mom, don’t worry—we are in the safest part of Jo’berg and after six minutes I stopped going east and came back. It only took me ten minutes—four additional—to find my way back. The weather was perfect. Running, I could not help but notice how at home I felt as the people of Johannesburg bustled with daily preparations around me. If natives were looking at me like a stranger I could not tell—I did not wear my glasses. I cannot see why they would though, jogging is by no means an American practice.

Then the apartheid museum. One of the most emotionally, mentally, and physically draining things I have ever done. To try and recount all of what I experienced would be an injustice. Someday, I will come back to this museum. Then I will come back eight more times. Then, I will try to coherently explain what it was like to observe an infinite struggle in six hours.

The architecture is reminiscent of a prison, and rightly so. Apartheid was the national imprisonment of a people and their ideas and culture, after all. I follow a school tour (semi-secretly), all black students, intrigued at the knowledge the children display. The teacher points to a list of apartheid laws. I look up and begin to read them. The class continues forward but I continue to look. Just a second ago I was watching propaganda for the racist National Party, disgusted at how scared people could behave so horribly. I look down. Below the laws is a window into and adjacent room where one can see hundreds of nooses. I sigh, saddened at what information I will encounter in my near future –when I make it to that room. Suddenly, my eyes readjust and in the midst of the nooses I see my own reflection. For the first time in my life I am genuinely horrified at my own image. I am not an Afrikaan, but what would I have done?

The further along in the museum I get, the further I am convinced that forgiveness is not deserved and reconciliation may not really be possible. Apartheid is a preview of the destruction of man. In their desperate attempt to be Gods, men become dogs. These dogs, in fear, then treat all other men as dogs too. Of course, I do not mean to limit the struggle to men, I just get tired of using the phrase people.

Mandela, Pieterson, Biko. I am touched by the struggle of students my own age and cannot help but be chilled at how recently this country, where I have been enjoying tea on a porch for an hour every morning was on the brink of Civil War.

Finally I get to the end of the museum. There is a video with Mandela walking out onto a Rugby pitch, in front of an 80% white stadium of South Africans for the finale of the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final. Historically, the color of one’s skin was coloured if a black was willing to play Rugby—the very game was intrinsically racist in the nation. Yet, Mandela came to support these 15 representatives of a new nation. His arrival signaled the support of an entire nation behind one cause. I cannot help but be awed at the effect. Amidst the initial shock of the crowd, one fan begins the cheer Nel-son, Nel-son. Soon the stadium of white fans is uproarious.

I am reminded of the Ivory Coast, who just four years ago ended their Civil War in order to unite behind their soccer team in the World Cup. I cannot forget Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, and the 1968 Olympics. What is it about sport that is so healing…so uniting? Perhaps sport provides a reminder of our most basic humanity. Competition for social standing no doubt leads to a fear that perpetuates senseless hatred and lack of understanding. But competition on the pitch—where thirty men from two different teams, countless different races, and thirty individual’s backgrounds are united as brothers in a holy quest to progress just one meter forward. Reconciliation by this definition, is not some sign of great western civilization or and idea limited to societies elite. Rather, it is more human than the fear of understanding and respect that has caused so much pain throughout history. What a great hope.

Sports are not barbaric. In fact they are a celebration of the human spirit and will. Sports, in their reminder of a common humanity, unify against all odds. Reconciliation cannot depend on sports, but the reconciliatory nature of the games we love, serve as a hope that in spite of, and because of, our common humanity, greater Reconciliation is possible.