COMPUTING OUT OF THE BOX
MICHAEL C. BARNES
I recently went on a business trip to South Africa. After spending a week visiting customers, I decided to spend the final day in South Africa going to the apartheid museum. My taxi driver introduced himself as Tony. I noticed that Tony was speaking the local language with ease and I asked him about this. Tony told me that his mother was Zulu and his father was Indian. This surprised me. To me, Tony looked completely Indian. Tony then explained to me that under the apartheid system, people were classified in very strange ways.
Under apartheid, descendants of whites or Europeans had special privileges and other races were classified as "blacks" or "coloureds". The way of classifying people as being one race or another was so arbitrary that members of the same family might be classified to be of different races. He told me how one test was to put a pencil into someone's hair. If the pencil stayed in the hair, the person was classified black and if the pencil fell, the person was classified coloured.
Tony told me that he grew up near the beach and asked me to imagine that if he, being classified as a coloured, put his foot into the ocean, he would be severely beaten as those classified as blacks and coloured were not allowed to go into the ocean. He asked me to imagine the logic behind this. As big as the ocean is, under apartheid, whites stopped those classified blacks and coloured from sharing the ocean with whites. Tony went on to describe the struggle. He talked about his brother having been arrested three times. He said that when the family went to visit his brother, they would have to queue for 12 hours. He said that whenever someone was arrested, you would never know if that person would ever come out of prison again. Many people were arrested and then never heard of or died suddenly and mysteriously.
Tony talked about how to resist apartheid, those classified as blacks or coloured banned together. They did what they could to make the country ungovernable. He talked of these massive tank-like vehicles coming into villages with police pouring out and arbitrarily beating people along the way. Tony talked about how the system of apartheid led to the death of his father, mother and brother. He told of how his mother an father who were denied education and equal opportunity died from stress, overwork and despair. I saw tears rolling down Tony's cheeks as he described apartheid.
Tony told me that today, South Africa is one of the greatest countries in the world. He said that it is a beautiful country with wonderful people and opportunities for all. He praised Nelson Mandela and described how after apartheid, he encouraged those classified as white to stay and work to build a great country.
Tony then told me that as bad as apartheid was that coming out of apartheid, something was lost. Tony talked about the solidarity that those classified as coloured and blacks felt for one another, that after apartheid, that this solidarity was lost. He said that in the days of apartheid, nobody classified as coloured or black would do anything against one another.
He talked about how when the police came and began beating someone, those watching would form a circle around the person being beaten. He said that there was nothing they could do to help the person being beaten but, they formed a circle to let that person know, that he was not alone. While the beating was taking place, those standing in the circle would begin to sing. The song they would sing would let the person being beaten know he was not alone. Then Tony said, that the name of the song that they sang was Ubuntu. Tony asked me if I knew what "ubuntu" meant. I looked at Tony who still had tears coming from his eyes and said "Now I do."
Michael C. Barnes is president of NorhTec.
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