In South Africa this is somewhat different. As I said, the affirmation of human dignity is the foremost pursuit of our (envisaged) society. As South Africans we are emerging from a history of people’s humanity being denied. That was the effect of over 300 years of colonialism and apartheid. The Framers of our 1996 Constitution realised this and included human dignity not only as a founding value in section 1 of our supreme law, but also as a separate right in section 10.

The aim of this piece is not to compare and say that one society is better than the other, or that one Constitution is better than the other. This is merely an observation that I think is an interesting one, and one that ought to be considered if one is ever to make a meaningful comparison between those two countries.

After spending four and a half weeks in DC it’s only natural that I try to understand this place at some deeper level. Part of being able to live in a place or at least to have a more insightful appreciation of it, I believe, is understanding how that place and the people who live in it ‘tick’.

What makes societies tick? What single factor, if it is possible to name such a thing, is responsible for determining the way a given society functions? Thinking happened and then my humanist tendencies pointed me in the direction of one thing: values. Great. But what then are the values that underlie the American and the South African societies? The answers are clear: the most prized value of the American people is liberty, and the equivalent in South Africa is dignity.

As much is evident when one reads the constitutions of both countries, and from an inspection of the constitutional jurisprudence of the highest courts in each country. Yes, I know the problems associated with judging a society by looking at its laws. But the truth is that the spirit of each constitution does in fact represent an ideal held by the people for whom it is supreme law. The US Constitution came about at a time when it’s Drafters and the American people were eager to release themselves from the shackles of the British Crown. The creation of a free society was the most important goal because of the reality of what came before. And so both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights have as a central theme the value of individual liberty.

Contd...

It occurred to me that the culture in the US is different, and so too is the relationship that the people of the US have with those whose job (I might say duty) is to provide them with information of the goings on of their society. Without claiming that I know this society, as an outsider, first observation is that there seems to be a blurring of the lines between news and commentary, that much is clear.

I’ll say this: I find it refreshing. When I gave it some thought, I found myself thinking that perhaps this open, unbridled First Amendment-backed media is good for this society. Perhaps it gives people the benefit of a plurality of uncensored views (which are in fact there) and allows for people to make their own choices about what they listen to and what they believe. After all, isn’t individual liberty (and individual responsibility) what American society is all about? Certainly, this argument is made by some Americans I’ve engaged with on this issue, including an educator resident at the Newseum.

But other Washingtonians that I have interacted with have said that this new way of doing news is a relatively new thing, and that it has had the effect of polarising American society further. They argue that today it is far too easy to search for and find the news that backs up your already held convictions, changing the role of the media from being a balanced source of information to being a platform from which to play at people’s sensitivities.

I always thought of myself as quite the worldly guy. I considered myself knowledgeable on many issues that affect other parts of the world and the peoples who live there. I subscribed, in part, to the philosophy of Cosmopolitanism—a school of thought propound by Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah a man whom I respect, and whom I hoped to meet when I was in New York. (Appiah’s story is not all that different from my own: he is also half-Ghanaian, and straddles the line between that world and the British of his maternal ancestry; and he too is queer.)

Coming to the United States, I experienced my first bout of culture shock, and it came from the most unlikely of sources: the news media. I was startled by what I felt was the flagrantly biased way in which the news was delivered, especially as it pertained to political matters. Two weeks ago, during the ‘Fast and Furious’ saga that rocked the office of the Attorney-General and the handling of which resulted in the AG, Eric Holder, held (wrongly, I think) in contempt of Congress, I was amazed at how the whole episode was reported by Fox News. It was so unabashedly conservative. Republican even. And then to top it off, while watching the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, I could only laugh as I realised that she made no attempt to cover her liberal leanings while ‘ripping into’ Fox.

These two things were new to me. First, it was the first time I had witnessed news be handled by the ‘media’ themselves in such a clearly partisan fashion. It seemed so irresponsible. It offended my South African sensibilities, and from conversations I had with my colleagues, it offended theirs too. And second, I was also new to the notion of one publisher or news house directly criticising one of its competitors.

Nobody knows what it’ll be like the first time they arrive in a new place. Yes, we often have some idea; we may know people who have visited that place before, we may have heard strangers talk about it in passing; we may very well have gone to consult the Wikipedian Oracle in search of the Divine Truth about that place. Certainly this was my relationship with Washington, District of Columbia before physically arriving here (my mind had arrived some weeks prior—fact). I knew everything there was to know: I’d studied the grid; I’d mapped out routes from my new home just across the north-western border in Chevy Chase Maryland to my work in Dupont Circle and to other sites of interest within the DC area. I was versed on the DC’s history and its actuality. Yes, I knew everything there was to know about DC, even before I knew-knew.

But nothing could have prepared me for the experience that would start with me stepping off the aeroplane at Washington Dulles International Airport nearly a month ago.

First, it was HOT. It was seriously hotter than anything I’d ever experienced in my life—hotter even than Phalaborwa! (And everyone knows Phalaborwa is hot.) Never was I so grateful for having invested in a something so supposedly antiquated as set of handkerchiefs (and never was I as smug as I was at rubbing that—the knowledge not the handkerchief—in the faces of those who found my hankie carrying ways a source for mirth).

Second, the people were courteous and friendly. From my lovely host family, the Lynches, to the business suit-clad ladies and gentlemen who helped me find my way when I finally knew that I didn’t know, most people that I met were quite eager to show me the way, even when it meant going out of their own.

Finally, the city was intense. DC is the political capital of the United States. I might venture that it is the political capital of the world. It is a city abuzz with politics, economics and international affairs. You must literally shut your eyes and ears to be ignorant of the hot topic of the day. When I arrived, I was in a state of intense glee.

These points are just an initial observation—the things which struck me on that first day, that first week. The time between then and now has been one of knowing less, and understanding or appreciating more… Time has exposed me to some of the depth of the District, the parts you don’t get from the Wikipedian Oracle or from being in the city for a mere day. DC has a lot of good, and it has taught me a great deal. But there is a great deal that this city can learn from outside its four quadrants. I hope that my South African sisters and brothers and I, along with our new sisters and brothers from the island of Ireland and from Palestine and Israel, can leave a part of ourselves in this place as we take a bit of it back home with us.

Also, I like this city; I do know that.

... And a deep sense of humility overcame me. Never before had I been so intimately honest with perfect strangers, and never before had I had such openness and depth reflected at me. What was this strange and accelerated ubuntu which seemed to defy my sensibilities and introduce me to a welcome discomfort? Quick as we were to advance past the acquaintance phase into a space usually reserved for those we’ve known for years, it never felt rushed. It felt familiar—in every sense of the word. Like an old and infinitely warm blanket it enveloped us, together. We were strangers, but oddly we were becoming a family. It felt right. It made me cry with inspired happiness. In the company of these people—these my people—I was deeply honoured and uncontainably excited...

I still am.

Let me try to put that in perspective. This is my first blog post. We are a few weeks into our South Africa-Washington International Program curriculum. And, I might say, this is quite the programme. Already we have engaged with many of our countries most serious and pressing issues, and always in a meaningful way. We have had an in-depth look at the national Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment framework; we have asked deep questions about the state of South Africa’s constitutional democracy and grappled with the very difficult history that provides context for our present. Importantly, we have debated the meaning of being an active citizen poised to meet head-on both the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead of us in South Africa. It has been intense, this SAWIP story. It’s just beginning.

In many respects the SAWIP story is the South African story. To tell the SAWIP story is not an easy thing to do, plainly because the South African story is so complex. We all star in that story and we are all its narrators; we write the story and it is written for us. Quite truly we all have a part to play; and play it to the fullest we must!

SAWIP really has done well to cast a group to play in its narrative that represents both a South African actuality and a future of promise: a group of storied strangers. I once mentioned in passing to one of the team how great it was that we have amongst us historians and politicians, economists and lawyers, teachers and managers. Each member brings with them an invaluable perspective informed by their colourful and varied educational and historical experiences. They have strange stories to tell.

I am moved to believe that this is part of what our South Africa needs—to learn as a nation to share in and to be comfortable with our beautiful strangeness. Nation-building is family-building. In a country of such diversity smothered in pain, and with as much that is unsaid and unacknowledged as our own, we need to make it safe for people to come forward and tell their own stories and have them actually listened to. Because strangers though we may be, our stories fit together as one.

It is through our stories that we curious strangers become a nation—a family.

I recall that first day at the SAWIP selection camp when newly-introduced we each took to the front to tell our tales one-by-one—our deep and troubled and brilliant and human tales. And with each personal recollection we wove another beautiful and strange pattern into the great burgeoning blanket that draws us together in a familial embrace. And a deep sense of humility overcame me...

The largest blanket in the world. Naturally.
(Knitted by the hands of South African churchwomen. Read the story here)