Scrolling and clicking around the social networks on the 4th of July, you see alot of well wishes and people in the US getting together to celebrate. As a kid there were some years, when I wasn’t in Portugal, that I would of course enjoy the festivities on this day. However now as an adult, I know more about what this day means, and instead of celebrating, I return to the words of Frederick Douglass, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”
Tag Archives: history
They Renamed Pretoria
The plane ride from Amsterdam to Vienna is more of hop than a flight. You’re up, you get a drink and a snack, you look out the window – you’re there. Yet even in that short time, I found myself engaged in a thought provoking conversation last week on the plane, with a young South African sitting to my left.
What particularly sparks my attention are the details that, even as a socially conscious and worldly journalist, I have missed over the years. One that will not come as a surprise to most of you as it has been true for several years now, they renamed Pretoria – a fact I was not aware of. Though the complete name change is still being discussed in some levels of government in South Africa, my new friend informed me that in her home town now known as Tshwane, most signs and official markers have all been changed already.
I didn’t have to ask her why they changed it. Thinking about it for a moment I realized the name Pretoria, even for me an outsider, makes me think of the apartheid era. Specifically I always loved the film Biko, about Stephen Biko’s life, and the depictions of police and Pretoria from that film are indeed prevalent in my head. Beyond that, when I think of former Portuguese colonies like Luanda in Angola (formerly Nova Lisboa) and Maputo in Mozambique (formerly Lourenço Marques), I understand the concept in the context of breaking with traditions and gruesome reminders from colonial times. So although I hadn’t heard Pretoria was renamed, I immediately did the math in my head and understood what was happening.
It was my seat companion that brought up the issue that inspired this post, when she expressed great frustration at the renaming. Not because she had some deep seated love for the name Pretoria or for the Apartheid era, but because for this young South African of Afrikaner decent (if I may add with no disrespect intended), the time, energy, and resources dedicated to the process of renaming cities like Pretoria could have better improved the nation by helping to address poverty and the needs of the most vulnerable people of the nation. Instead they spend huge sums of money and hold endless discussions, all to change a name of a city.
Looking back and forth between this very articulate person and the clouds outside, I was reminded of that great scene in Clint Eastwood’s Film Invictus (about Mandela’s intial time as the new president of South Africa and the end of apartheid). In this specific scene there is a meeting of the new sports commission about changing the colors and name of the South African rugby team. Rugby having been the sport synonymous with those in power during apartheid. Without going into the extended version of what happened, nor to ruin a powerful scene in the film, just as the new commission is going to approve of a motion to change the name and change the colors of a team that was so important to many white South Africans, Mandela begged them not to. He felt rugby could be changed from a symbol of division to a symbol of unity.
Mandela has been out of the presidency for a long time and I haven’t read his comments about the Pretoria name change. Maybe it isn’t fair to compare them and indeed the name should go away like Salisbury in Zimbabwe and Leopoldville in Congo. Or maybe the creative and unifying spirit that Mandela brought is gone now, and his fear of people playing politics with symbols and names has come true.
Clinical Protest
“…if you live in a state institution and you’re diagnosed with schizophrenia in the United States in the present day, the chances are exponentially greater that you are going to be in a prison than in a hospital…” – Jonathan Metzl on All in the Mind.
A recent edition of All in the Mind, ABC Radio National’s Mental Health radio program, looked at historical connections between protest and mental illness. One of the main points of the program is to point out that historically, those active in protest movements of various kinds, have often been said to be or officially diagnosed as mentally ill. In this way their goals or grievances with social structures and practices are seen as not worthy of being taken seriously, as they are brought on by a sickness.
The main interviewee on the program was Associate Professor Jonathan Metzl, author of the book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease, published by Beacon Books. Through his work Metzl explains a long list of cases where black people active in the civil rights struggle in the US were in incarcerated and while in prison diagnosed as schizophrenic or psychotic, then having their sentences extended and the array of treatments and medications expanded til the point that even if they had never been mentally ill before, they would become so.
From the era of slavery to the days of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, the discussion is a very interesting one that still has a big impact today in how we look at people in mental institutions, prison, and protest movements.
Highly recommended listening, full transcript is also available.
ctrp336 Political Persecution and Mongolian History
Within ten minutes of sitting down at a table together, Bekhbat and I immediately were immersed in a conversation about Mongolian history. Me, the student, and he – the teacher, Director of the Museum Dedicated to Victims of Political Persecution in UlaanBaatar, and the grandson of P. Genden; former Prime Minister of Mongolia and victim of political persecution, executed by Stalin’s KGB in 1937.
In this podcast conversation Bekhbat takes us through the history of modern Mongolia, sorting through the myths and half-truths and explaining how the country came to be what it is today. In doing so he also walks us through the history of his very interesting family, including the infamous story of how his grandfather got into a heated argument and slapped Stalin.
Remembering the 25th
It is the 25th of April, although I may be far from Portugal, here in some corner of Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, I still wanted to pause from the travel posts, videos and audios and pay my respects. To the countless who stood up to fascism and repression in the name of liberation and social justice. They marched and sang in the streets of Lisbon, after so many decades of suffering and war without end. They kicked out a tyrant and in doing so took great steps to improving the quality of people’s lives in Portugal. For all these reasons and more, today I pause and say thanks to all those who helped make it possible.
In searching for videos I know well and have never seen before I came across this recounting of that day, which includes photos and audio testimony. Its in Portuguese, but even if you can’t understand I think you can decipher the passion in the voices and the power of the images.
Secret Cities
As we stroll through the snow-ice-slush filled streets of Tomsk, my new friends here have come to understand my penchant for abandoned places and forgotten history. It just so happens that Siberia has plenty of forgotten history and strange stories that could keep a citizen reporter like me busy for a long time. The trick is getting access when you’re an outsider and you don’t speak the language.
My favorite story so far is about a place only 7 kilometers outside of Tomsk, a town by the name of Seversk. Some may remember it from when it was called Tomsk-7, the town where 3 important nuclear reactors were located. What makes this town stand out more than the already impressive number of nuclear facilities it houses, is that during the Soviet Union the government decided for security purposes, the existence of these towns should be kept a secret, and access to these towns would be restricted. How do you restrict access to a town? They took a page from the medieval days of kings and kingdoms, they built a wall around it. To get in one must have official permission, or be a resident, and surely NOT be a foreigner.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the beginning of the 1990’s, it was decided that these towns (most at least) should be able to choose if they want to stay closed off by walls and armed guards. Amazingly, many voted to stay that way. Why? Perhaps it was fear of the outside world. Fear that their lives would change in a way they never wanted. Whatever the reason, it is amazing to think that 7 km from where I sit at this very moment, there is a massive wall that surrounds a town of 100,000 people who in order to go to work in the morning, must show papers to military personnel at a checkpoint.
Take this already interesting situation and add the facts that 1 – Through nuclear disarmament deals between the US and Russia, 2 of Seversk’s reactors have been shut down, and 2 – in 1993 there was an explosion at one the facilities resulting in a radio active cloud – what you get is a very confusing and difficult situation within the walls of Seversk. Or at least, that’s what I think when I consider potentially large unemployment plus an extreme environmental hazard, bottled up in one town.
Coming up next – A podcast about Seversk and life in a secret city. I can’t get inside, but I’m hoping to speak with someone who comes outside on a regular basis, maybe I’ll even get to go to the wall just to see it first-hand.