This morning, the house on Osbourne St. is still for the first time since we moved in a little less than two weeks ago. While the others went to the Green Market I, having already been, decided to stay behind and grapple with a few issues we have been presented with—and with my own internal struggle to believe in reconciliation.

I feel privileged to be here. Yes, the Cape is breathtaking. Johannesburg was also beautiful. The course has been rigorous, but the challenge has expanded my thoughts and been extremely rewarding. Above all though, the people I have met in this little “journey,” have been among the most wonderful, brilliant individuals that I have ever had the privilege of acquainting in such a brief period of time. Classmates, faculty, the lecturers, and even chance meetings with restaurantuers and shuttle drivers, in no particular order, have certainly confirmed a hope that all peoples can be teachers and friends.

So how can Apartheid happen? How can the Ku Klux Klan still operate a major church just thirty miles from my childhood home? What is it that abuses all of Earth’s individuals, and causes us to do such, for lack of a better word, shitty things to each other?

Power. The physical and deeply psychological desire for power has manipulated its way into probably every aspect of human society. The results? Racism. War. Opression. Gender and Sexuality Bias. Certainty of having the one true correct set of beliefs (are you listening Benedict, Mom, Dad? Nation of Islam? Organized religion?). There are others, but if I get the picture…then in my blog that should hopefully suffice.

The very history of all peoples can be seen in this violent (and in my opinion all oppression is violent) light. Bushmen and Koi fought over the best hunting and farming lands. Then, in a fight for the domination of Europe, white sailors claimed a land that had its own inhabitants. They came. They saw. They conquered. Then, not to disregard any other history, it became easier to assume that the European peoples and their beliefs were more important than any others. Not a bad economic decision for six million whites who might have had to compete against 48 million people of color. Apartheid—not all of it, but a damn good chunk. Another example? Well, it sure made Hitler’s bid for power a lot easier to make himself look like a savior sent to rescue his people from the clutches of religious and social minorities. He gave the masses a sense of entitlement—and only at the cost of millions of lives. Why did the south in the States become so disgustingly segregated after those three wonderful amendments in the late 19^th century? Well, a previously privileged population was obviously not keen to realize that, in their racist, power driven society, they had been the ones to create a larger population of now freed slaves than slave owners. It would have been a shame for the Colonel Angus plantation, if the colonel’s voice was now equal to his five hundred slaves.

But what does this mean for Reconciliation? Well, let me first say that social institutions based on power are not that easy to trump. The life of an activist is in no ways easy. Standing against the state, even when the state is totally wrong, is a commitment to an uphill struggle. So, in this post-apartheid society…or in the States…or anywhere for that matter, there must be a conscious movement to educate on the institutionalized relations of power and the human flaw to comply with these structures.

When it is convenient for whites in South Africa to continue to believe in their own superiority, and in doing remove social power from others, it is not as if the removal of laws will remove these behavioral patterns. Likewise, the colored population, which is so distinct here, is used to having more privilege than Africans. I am doubtful that the behavior of most coloreds in this nation will fight to destruct the psychological aspects of this man-made advantage. This vie for power applies to all races, all religions, all sexualities…all people.

Last night we went to a book launch for a new novel that challenges hetero-normative culture (ask for a definition when I get home family). I was shocked when one of the other guests pointed out that as a bi-sexual she was not only concerned about hetero-normativity but also homo-normativity. Both invalidated her difference. Her sexuality, like a race, is part of her identity but not the defining characteristic—just a part in the million piece jigsaw puzzle that we each are. Pecking orders, I dream, are for chickens. Though each time I meet beautiful individuals I become more aware that while a person is smart, people are dumb pack animals.

Yet, here I am. By all considerations I am in the most privileged of every social category. I am not sorry for this. I am responsible for this though, as I move forward with my aspirations. And, despite my writing all these revelations about the ills of power, I am aware that many of my ideals are just that—limited to academia. I have no doubt that my own life is filled with comforts that depend on and will depend on my compliance with power structures. I just hope that someday my life will not be defined by a societal, and human, addiction to a destructive drug.

Reconciliation in all societies is limited to the recognition and deconstruction of this must ugly human flaw. Because there must be a way to teach that achievement deserves recognition, not elevation. There must be a way to learn that difference is just different, not threatening. Reconciliation might in part be the recognition that power lie in the respect, understanding and love of difference. In other words, the possibility of reconciliation will be augmented when power is defined as relationships with each other, not as the relationship to others.