Today we visited the National Zoological Gardens in TSHWANE… Well OK the name of the township isn’t Tshawane, but our host, the zoo’s executive director, Dr Clifford Nxomani, referred to it as such. Tshawane is the name of the Zulu Chief of the indigenous people who originally inhabited that area. The real name of the city today is Pretoria. The name Pretoria comes from the name of the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius. More on that story later. The name Tshwane is sometimes used as an alternative name for the city of Pretoria itself, and following the city council's vote of March 8, 2005, it could become the city's new name if approved by the central government. Should the change take place, "Pretoria" would continue to refer to the city's central business district, as proposed by the current municipality.
Back to the zoo… We arrived early for our special “behind the scenes” tour. This zoo was actually founded 110 years ago, and in 2004 it was declared a national research facility. The reason for this was the recognition of the potential that the zoo carried for advancing life sciences and supporting education in the local schools. Most of the people who live in South Africa would not be able to afford to visit the game reserve that we visited a few days ago, or any of the game reserves in the area, and thus would have little access to seeing the kinds of animals that are housed here. This is particularly interesting to hear as I sit in this room located in AFRICA. The zoo has a threefold mission. They have a public mission to be a zoo, a statutory mission to be a top notch research facility, and a responsibility to be a metropolitan tourism facility. The NZG is known as “A place that’s good for the soul.” As part of their customer service approach they utilize a concept called “service recovery.” The zoo’s executive director used an illustration to explain this concept:
“If a child drops a smoothie while visiting the zoo, what do you do? Do you say, ‘R5 for another smoothie?’ or ‘Do you replace that smoothie for free?’ They empower their staff to act in such a way as to make the NZG a place where people have a great experience that will encourage them to return again and again. Under their philosophy, you replace that smoothie free of charge”
One of the more interesting topics discussed by our host dealt with the lack of black South Africans in the maths and sciences. He explained to us that this deficit is the result of a cumulative historical inequality; thus, there is a 3-fold mission by the government to increase the numbers:
1.Interest – they want to generate interest in the sciences.
2.Access to resources to promote success – they want to make sure that minorities have resources to pursue educational opportunities related to the sciences.
3.Careers, awareness and accessibility - they want to make sure that minorities have awareness of and access to scientific careers.
The zoo does its part to assist in fulfilling this mission as we saw when we visited their state of the art laboratories where they are doing some great research. Very interesting that South Africa must think about race in everything it does. Even in how it runs its zoo. While at the zoo, we also got a tour of the zoo’s hospital and kitchen. So we got to see how the animals are given medical services, and how their food is prepared. Next we hopped on golf carts and toured the zoo. Great visit, and a nice zoo. I especially enjoyed the snakes… nice variety.
Next we visited the Voortrekker Monument. I don’t even know where to begin. A nice old gentleman named Villiam led us on a tour of this monument… one of the largest monuments in all of Africa. It is dedicated to the triumph of the indigenous Dutch Afrikaans (something about that should sound really strange to you) over the Zulus who lived in that part of Africa when these Dutchmen arrived. The Voortrekker showcases a beautiful marble basrelief which tells the story of how this group of people fleeing persecution discovered this part of Africa and conquered the savage Zulus who lived there (this is some Christopher Columbus type discovery – like how do you discover something that was already there and already inhabited?). Villiam, who is a direct descendent of the Voortrekkers told us how the great Voortrekker general outwitted the Zulus and how 500 Dutchmen with guns and 50,000 bullets somehow managed to defeat 12,000 Zulus wielding spears and leather shields at the battle of Blood River. Hey, I don’t know about you, but I’m not fighting some dude with a gun when all I have is a spear. I don’t like those odds! The artfulness of the monument is impeccable although it’s a hideous depiction of the murder of the original inhabitants of that region of South Africa. It shows the Zulu king being murdered and it celebrates the event as something that God did for the Voortrekker’s. They even built a church to commemorate their victory over… I mean slaughter of these people who were only protecting their land.
This monument is the Voortrekker’s attempt to establish a national identity and to justify what they did to the REAL indigenous people. It is a bastion of white supremacy commemorating the ancestors of the fathers of Apartheid.
I could really go on and on and give a lot more detail about my experience at the Voortrekker… BUT I won’t do that… I will share a few of my emotions about it though. There were several moments when I just wanted to curse while listening to Villiam talk and looking at those images, and I did antagonize him with some “in your face” type questions (which he cleverly sidestepped)… BUT you know what? History is about who’s in power and who’s telling the story. This was these people’s interpretation of their history, and even though it was a complete lie in my eyes, its their version of the story. History is funny that way. All I could really do was to process it in comparison to the rest of the history that I have explored over the course of 7 days in South Africa. In the end, I asked Villiam, “Do you personally believe that story is the whole truth.” He said that the truth was “twisted” and he said that the irony is that the day that the Afrikaans celebrate the building of that monument, December 16th, is the same day that the ANC was born on… Interesting.
Last stop… the home of Dr. Edwin Smith to hear his personal story. Smith is from the Eastern Cape and he grew up as a political activist in Apartheid South Africa. I had no idea that his story was so rich. He was actually in exile for 18 years. He treated us to a fantastic mini lecture about history, racial psychology, growing up a “coloured” in South Africa, and about our role as educators. He left us with this tidbit, “Very often it is the teachers who trap us, and cause us to look at the world with a certain disposition.”
Very full day… lots of emotions…
Written by Frederick A Hanna
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