Review of First South African Trip
CARL: This is a tape for Len Holstock
being done by Carl Rogers
and Ruth Sanford, in hopes that it will give some
of our reactions to
the South African
trip.
I think I'll start out with some of the things I
was feeling as
we boarded the plane, for
felt it was an enormous challenge, I wondered if we could contribute
anything by our work there; I felt that I would
be fascinated to see
the country that I had read so much about,- see how
much my expectations
were fulfilled or changed. It was also a real adventure to be going
to a new country that I had never visited before.
RUTH: I think my knowledge of
when I went there. I had done not much more than the average
person,
I suppose, and so I went with a limited
background.
The thing which I really
expected was more of the country itself away from the
cities. I had
hoped to see more of the open country, not just in
the game preserves, see it up close. I expected to come into contact
more with the native culture of the black people of
their own homes and children in their own
schools. And I realize as
I
look back on it that that is the part I really missed.
CARL: I remember very well when we landed in
being called out of line by
name—we knew we were going to meet a
television crew, but I certainly
was not prepared for all these costumed
dancing Sangomas,
the native healers or witch doctors – I found that very exciting,
and I realize I felt,
although they were very strange, the beating of the drums
and the costumes and the
dancing, yet I felt very welcome. Their cheery smiles
and the way they spontaneously
included us made me feel safe somehow,
and I was glad to join in
the dancing with them; that was a most exciting welcome and
totally unexpected. I had no
idea that had been set up by Len.
RUTH: I didn't know we
were to be met by a television-crew, so the
whole thing was a great
surprise. I had read Len's articles on native
healers, and was expecting
contact with them, but I certainly did not
expect to meet them in a dance
at the airport, or at a party such as the
one in Len's home. I found
them very spontaneous. I was startled by
their spontaneity at first,
and quite thrilled that they included us in
their dance, also by the gift
of the muti necklace.
CARL; Yes, I've worn
that necklace on many occasions since and it
seems to have brought me the
good luck that it was supposed to.
RUTH: I go back earlier
than where we started when I think of
I felt a real trust that
I was invited to go. And then I began to feel a kind of panic.
I felt "What can I
take there?
What can I do there that
will make it worth my going? Such a vast
country, and I knowing so
little about it!" And then the
thought
came to me: "I'm all I have, and so that's all I can
take. And if
I can be myself there,
with the people, as real and as open as I can be,
that will be enough—it will
have to be." And I found that I
then
approached everything I did with a
real lack of expectation [of] what it was
supposed to be. That to me was very important, to me as a
person, and,
I think, to the work
that we did there.
CARL: As I think of our various experiences, I
think of the time
that we spent with Credo Mutwa, the philosopher and native healer, really
a guru of the Sangomas. I found
that first I felt rather stupid when he
responded to my question
"What could I contribute to
he replied
"Nothing." And then I felt
somewhat repelled by his arrogance,
because he seemed to have all
the answers, seemed to want to sort of talk
down to us. I was both attracted and repelled by the
native village in
which he worked in
indicate what tribal life was
like—these round huts and all—but it was also
quite artificial, and that
didn't appeal to me. Then in what he
said:
Some of it I found very
congenial—his resentment at the dehumanization
of modern culture; his
anger at putting the blacks into square concrete
block houses which were not a
suitable home for the ancestral spirits; his
respect for the person—all of
that I liked. And I was really shocked
by
his Stress on the fact that
native Africans would follow any leader, no
matter how brutal he might be
to them, if he maintained a clear image,
and that could be almost
any kind of an image: a warrior-like
image or
a feminine image or
whatever, but a kind of an artificial stage-presence
image that they would respond
to. And he himself I found,
surprisingly,
was an example of that,
with his great big sword hanging at his side and
his greatcoat on, and proud
of his big belly. That was his image and
that's
what he felt gave him some
of his place of leadership. Then I was
just
completely bowled over when he
changed from this rather arrogant, preaching
person to one who kneeled at
my side very painfully and said, in an almost
pleading voice, "What can 1
do?" I couldn't understand that
rapid shift
in his attitude, and I
couldn't make much of a response except that he
would have to find the
answers for himself.
When we went to his
home, I was impressed by the real hovel of his
home, a dark, cramped little
house; and the contrast between the squalid
nature of the home and his own
dignity and the dignity of his wife and
the dignity of the young
woman who was training to be a Sangoma seemed
so totally miraculous
almost in that kind of a squalid environment.
RUTH: I had much of the same response to Credo when
I saw him. I
had some expectations
because my introduction had been through Len,
that here is a learned man,
a philosopher, a poet, a sculptor, a spiritual leader,
and what I saw was a great
mountain of a man, very heavy, in a greatcoat on a hot day,
a sword practically
dragging on the ground, pacing about in
a very irritated way.
I felt let down, felt repelled,
fascinated, and really confused. But
after our conversation with him,
when he knelt on the ground,
I saw the hurt, angry, vulnerable, very
human and discouraged man
who, in spite of his posturings before and his
preachments, had revealed that very
tender part of himself. I saw then,
and my heart really went
out to him as a person, at that point. I
think
that's when I began to see him
as a person, and that there were all these
parts of him which he was
trying to pull together. He had been
torn
apart by the love for his
people, loyalty to their spirit, his feeling of
rejection because he does not go
along with the moderate blacks, strife
among his own people, among
the tribes of the native South Africans, his
being cheated and his writing
controlled, by publishers, his clairvoyant
vision of what is happening to
destroy the people and the spirit of South
me pulled together so much
of the whole life and mind and spirit of South
CARL: One other aspect of our visit that impressed
me was the ritualistic
nature of some of his
behavior. He wanted us to sit on the
stones that would be part of
the earth of
us to sit on, and when we
got to his house the formality with which he
gave us these really unusual
gifts made me realize that ritual comes
very naturally to the
African native and is a part of his life.
And all
of that done with a
ritualistic flair, seating us on a purple piece of
cloth, giving us gifts with a
little speech with each one, giving you an
African name, and so
on.
RUTH: There was real dignity in that, and
reverence, I think,
reverence for the tradition and
recognition, particularly of you, as
another "seeker after
truth," he said. Perhaps the best
way to
summarize my impressions soon
after returning from
I said, “I must write,
about the past weeks in
so complex, so vast, and a
part of the fiber of my being, that finding
a perspective or a
starting point seems impossible. And yet
I want in
some way to make real to
those who are close to me that other world of
which I am now a part. The grandeur, the fertility, and the
barrenness
of the land, the warmth
and the chill, the courage, the hopelessness,
the helplessness, the fear,
the hate, the iron bars, the invisible bars,
the inner freedom of
spirits who will not be quenched, the joyous,
childlike dance and the quick
smile of those close, to the earth, the
illiteracy and resignation, the
ancient wisdom, the arrogance of those
in high places, the
desolate, barren quarter-acres of a resettlement
homeland.”
CARL: Somehow that leads me to want to comment on Kwandebele.
To me that was one of
the outstanding experiences of the trip, to see
this dusty, arid, infertile
land with 700,000 people scattered over it
was a spectacle never to be
forgotten. Their lives seemed so
desperate,
really, living on a
quarter-acre of ground with absolutely no opportunity
to earn except to take
whatever the white man would pay them in
I felt real anger at the
incredible injustice of that economic slavery
that they were exposed to,
and somehow that was made, that feeling of
injustice ran even deeper because
the people themselves seemed often
cheery, smiling, resigned to
the fact that they had water turned on in
the infrequent taps only
two hours each day and they had to carry all
the water to their
homes—all of that they seemed to be taking with the
resigned patience of the
oppressed.
RUTH: Yes, I responded with real anger. I felt it welling up in
me during Kwandebele, and what a cruel system that is: families split
apart living in a desert
land. I think nothing could grow on that land—
at least I didn't see much
growing on it—a dumping ground really for
the families of those who
keep the cities running. And then the
almost
mechanical way in which the women
were walking along the road, usually
with a pail of water on
their head, maybe both arms full, maybe a baby
on their back, and hardly
any men anywhere to be seen; I suppose they
were all in the city. The wonderful bursts of light and laughter
came
when children running along
the side of the road or sitting by the side
of the road would look up
at us, and if we waved or smiled at them, they
would leap up and down and
cavort and wave, and their faces were
immediately lighted up with
smiles. So here was all this spontaneity
and life
in the midst of what
seemed like a very hopeless situation.
On the other
hand, I remember that woman,
a young woman, apparently, with a nice-
looking jacket on, walking
along carrying a 5-gallon can on her head,
rand her hands in her
pockets, very nonchalant.
CARL; One other thing I remember about Kwandebele was that it had
taken Len three weeks to get
a permit to go there. That to me is an
example of the pattern of the
country. I have never been anywhere,
certainly in no country or state,
which was so frustratingly wound about
with laws and permits and
regulations and rules and prohibitions.
It
must take an incredible army
of bureaucrats to even try to enforce them.
I can see why people
told me that the rules were so complex that you
That couldn't possibly
live without breaking rules, and that was leading to
a disrespect for all
law. Everywhere we went there were
rules, rules,
rules. Entering Soweto there was a big billboard
full of rules about
being in
botanical garden, a whole list of
rules was there too. It just seemed
as though everywhere we
went there were rules.
RUTH:
In a way I feel that that's part of the hope in South
law is of no value unless
it is obeyed," and of course the whole thrust
of her revolutionary action
was peaceful but not obeying an unjust law.
I think one of the
contradictory experiences I had within myself
had to do with the patience
and forbearance of the people, the black
people. And then I found myself feeling angry with
them, impatient with
them for their patience, and
feeling that if they weren't quite so patient
and long-suffering, that
they wouldn't have to stay where they are. And
then I know that there are
just mountains of reasons why they can't react.
CARL: And one large reason why they can't react is
that there is
this always-present fear of
detention: the security branch, the security
police, can pick them up at
any time, and so they have developed this
resignation, I feel.
I reacted quite
differently to different groups of black people that
we met. With some, the educated blacks like Daphne or
John Tau, I felt
thoroughly understanding of them,
as though we could converse easily
as equals. I felt somewhat the same way about the
faculty and students
at the University of the
North; I felt much more at ease with the black
faculty than the white
there. On the other hand, with some I felt
a deep
cultural difference. I know that when I was talking with Percy
about how
he was called to be a Sangoma, I realized I was talking to someone from
a very different
culture. When Credo was talking about
his firm belief
in the ancestral spirits, and
when others were talking about that, I
realized there was quite a chasm
between us, not of antagonism, simply
of difficulty in
understanding. I suppose that one thing
that surprised
me and disturbed me was
the real hostility and friction between the different tribal groups.
That was one thing I had
not anticipated; I didn'tcome across that very
strongly,
or at least it didn't
impress me, in my reading about
opposed to blacks as they were
to whites was somewhat of an astonishment.
One good example of
that, and also an example of the really malevolent
way in which the government
tries to divide and conquer is the
Council.
But those blacks are so
hated by the
the council working in a
barbed-wire-fenced enclosure with armed guards.
because they simply wouldn't be
safe among the population. The reason
is that the government
manipulated it so that six percent of the population
elected that council, and so
they are not representative of the
people. They are an example of what one black called "the
white men with
black skins."
RUTH: Yes, that must apply to them. I am puzzled by what you just
said, and what I remember of
what Len said about the six percent of
the population of
were showing resistance to
the government's saying "Now you have to
elect some people to
represent you," and because they resisted it,
most people didn't go to the
polls.
(CARL: That's
right.)
RUTH: Is that the same?
CARL: Yes. They boycotted the election, but then
the government
regarded the election as valid.
RUTH: as valid, so that six percent voted the
government for a
million people.
(CARL: Right.)
Ruth: I'm feeling right
now a little that maybe I'm dropping into the trap
of saying a thing is all
right or all wrong, and I want to go back to that
statement about the University of
the North, and the black faculty, the
white faculty. I had occasion to talk with two white members
of the faculty
and two black members of
the faculty. And it so happened that
those
sitting near me at lunchtime,
the white professors, were as eager as were
the others to learn how to
facilitate conflicting groups: How can
we
teach Ourselves—can we learn
by ourselves—to create a climate where
factions on the campus here can
become more understanding one of the other?
So I think there are
many white people who are really seriously concerned
and want very much to help
bridge that gap and perhaps don't know how.
CARL: I would quite agree that generalizations are
always dangerous.
One thing that I might
speak about is the feelings I had when we
went to
for the squalid ghetto
aspect, but I was again shocked to find that you
had to have a permit—a
white person would have to have a permit—to go
to
that John Tau had to carry on
his counseling work in a miserable little
concrete block house. And then I was very surprised to find some of
the
houses were decorated in
tribal fashion; that was nice, and pleasant,
and it was utterly
surprising to find some large and
obviously wealthy
homes. It made me realize—I didn't see any of the
owners of those
wealthy homes--that I never in
never saw any very rich
black. It seems as though the whites
all, as
far as I could tell, live
quite middle-class or affluent lives, while the
blacks with very rare
exceptions live lives of real poverty.
That seemed
like such a powder keg of
potential rebellion.
RUTH: With twenty percent of the population
governing the whole.
And as someone remarked,
if they could only understand it, there would
be enough for everyone to
live well if they would share it evenly, and
yet it would mean a
tremendous loss to those presently in power,
a tremendous
so that it certainly is an
explosive situation.
And the whites living in
fear all the time that if these different
factions, groups, classes,
classifications, aren't kept apart, they might
gain some power.
CARL; Yes, I felt that the whole system of
apartheid, separating
blacks, whites, Indian,
colored, other categories, has been so successful
and so strictly controlled
that it has separated persons from persons
as well as colors from
colors. Dialogue seems to be quite
unheard of
and openness of expression;
young people in an Afrikaans family don't
contradict their elders, don't
speak up for themselves. I felt that if there
was
one contribution we made,
it was that we did in a small way initiate dialogue
between groups that had never
talked with each other as equals before.
RUTH: And up to that time I had never had the
experience of so much warmth, acceptance, and spontaneity, the people surging
up to the stage afterwards to talk. A
number of men and women, although more women than men, as far as I was
concerned, said that they had never believed it possible for a man and a woman
to share equally in such a gathering, facilitation of a group, with neither one
dominating the other, and that certainly was a reflection of life in Africa: one
dominates another. It's almost
impossible to get dialogue between equals.
And I am reminded of the man, a professor whose name I remember because
it's Neil, said that probably there was hardly a person in all of Stellenbosch, a white person, who had ever talked to a
black person excepting as a servant, and was
quite amazed that we had had
an opportunity to meet with all groups, all
classifications. So it seems that that hunger, real hunger for
communicating one with another, was so evident in
in
CARL: Yes, I don't think I have ever seen or
contacted people who
were so starved for
communication. It seemed as though they
just blossomed when they knew there was a chance that they could speak their
minds and it would be
accepted; they could speak across racial barriers,
they could speak across sex
barriers. I feel that the black/white
group
onstage that we did in
were just eye-openers to the
people, that showed that real conversation,
real dialogue, real
communication could go on between different groups.
And I share your feeling
that probably one of our most important Impacts
was our cooperative way of
working together, that to see a man and woman
working together easily, and as
you say, without domination, was just
unheard of, and that probably
was one of our biggest contributions, and
it never had to be put
into words.
RUTH: Yes, saying "I have seen it happen, so I
know it's possible."
That brings up something
which was an amazement to me, and that was
the way in which women
responded to an opening for a meeting of women, a
women's group. And I felt that in our time with the marriage
and family
counselors in
and 'the role of husband
and wife or in the home, that there was such a
chasm between women, who were
all family counselors, in their feeling about
a woman's place, and the
shock with which one woman responded to another
who said, "Well I can
go out; my husband lets me go out to meetings; I
just have to ask
him." And here was an explosion, a
woman who said "Well
I’m not doing that
anymore; you mean you have to ask your husband?" I
felt that when we got into
that, I was beginning to feel really in myself
there, through those women,
the impact of the old and the new as they
meet.
CARL: Somehow that brings to mind one other thing
that I felt in
the oppression. It's all scripturally based, even the man/woman
domination and the government separation of races and so on. They have firmly believed—whether they really
believe it now I don't know—but they have firmly believed that that's God's
law, that's the way things should be, and so there is a
righteousness about a lot of the things that seem to me evil in
RUTH: It's very hard to convey the complexity of
all that. And I
know I haven't begun to see
the complexity of it. I have some
general
impressions and feelings, but I'm
sure if I lived there, with the awareness
I have now, I would find that I'd just begun.
CARL: Yes, one thing that impressed me - was that
any simple solution to the South African problems is impossible. It's an incredibly complex mix of races and
viewpoints and degrees of sophistication and all.
Somehow the gap between the
wealthy group that we met with at lunch in
Capetown and the poverty we saw
in Kwandebele is just vast, and the difference
between the Masai tribe that we saw in
tribal life in
gap is enormous. There are no easy solutions; there could only
be progress
toward solutions, and that
would have to come about through dialogue,
it seems to me.
RUTH: Yes, I think the point which you made about
the black/white
Group, I guess it really
was a confrontation, wasn't it (CARL: Um-hmm)—
it was a dialogue, but it
was very real and very confrontive; the important
thing that happened there was that for that short time, at least,
each one of those persons
was there as an equal, was accepted as an equal,
was heard as an equal
regardless of whether that person was in a position
of power politically,
socially, or in a position of being invisible or
powerless. And again, seeing that that has happened,
even in a limited
time or space, means that it
can happen.
CARL: That was one very important philosophic or
theoretical point
that came home to me,
because the question was raised;
"How can power-
less people have any
communication or dialogue with those in power?"
And we showed that there
is a temporary answer, but a very important
answer, that in a conference,
a facilitator can create equality between
the people, by treating
each with equal dignity and respect, and listening
equally to each. And that's a terribly important thing to
know. And then
I was concerned with
another aspect of it: knowing that yes,
they would
be together as equals
during the weekend, and Monday it would be the
oppressor and the oppressed; the
black would have to be subservient and
exploited. And that raised the whole, philosophical
question, "Is it right
and fair to empower a
person for a short period of time, to make them
perhaps feel stronger, feel
more competent, more able to express themselves
and so on, when the next
day that equality will vanish?" But
I think
we both came to the
conclusion that, yes, it's only from that kind of
equality that the Steve Bikos or the Daphnes, the
intelligent, educated
statesman-like people, persons
growing out of the oppressed group, they're
the only hope of
how it was possible for
such people to gain their equality.
RUTH: I think that question came up very forcibly
to me in
when the rehabilitation
counselor said "Do I have the right to lift, to
raise the sights of a poor
minority person who has no possibility of
realizing their full potential,
and yet saying you have potential
which you can realize if you
empower yourself?" And the same
answer
comes back to that, and I
think there's another, I guess philosophical,
part of that for me. And that is that I have no choice. If a person
has an opportunity to gain
new insights into his own or other persons'
potential, I have no right to
withhold that opportunity. Neither can I
be responsible for what
that person does with it. It may be that
some
people will lose it, or will
be hurt by it more than helped, but that has
to be for that person; I
can't carry that responsibility. But I
feel
that I have no right as a
human being to withhold it.
CARL: ... would be in Stellenbosch. That's
the only experience that has left a bad taste in my mouth, from beginning to end. From my point of view, nothing went
right. I didn't enjoy the pomp and
ceremony of our greeting, I didn't enjoy being photographed with so many
different groups. It seemed as though I
was sort of a specimen to be captured rather than a person to be involved
with. I was pleased by the introduction:
the elderly professor whose name I forget gave a very good, concise picture of my
views—it was really the only bright spot of the day. I didn't feel a receptive energy in the
audience, and that, I think, helped to make it true that what I said to them
was not very exciting or
well done. I wasn't very satisfied with that. And then there was
the strange falsity of the
interview with Mark, about which I felt
badly for awhile; I felt that
I was foolish and lacking in perception, but I gradually came to realize I
would have handled it the
same even if I had been more
aware of his falseness. Then I didn't
like the fact that they
believe they are true followers of mine.
It
simply didn't seem that way to
me. So the afternoon wasn't a very
pleasant experience. Then to go to the reception and be hit on
the head by a tree
(laughter) when I went in, just seemed to be
symbolic of the day. And then I felt out of it in the crowd at the
reception. I'm never very good at big receptions like
that. I did
enjoy Len's rebuke of the
university, his little speech, but for me
it was the most
frustrating low point of the trip, and I find that I
don't like to think about
it. That shows how unpleasant a day it
was for me.
RUTH: That tree surely made an impression on you. (laughter)
(CARL:
Definitely!)
RUTH: I felt much the
same way, not as strongly, about Stellenbosch.
I felt that it was very
proper, and very academic. There was a
great
deal of pride in saying that
they were Rogerian in their psychology
department. And yet when I saw their newly built offices
(CARL: laboratory) —laboratory, I saw nothing but hardware, and maybe that's
the way they see it. I had the feeling that they probably knew all
the right words, but didn't
have a connection between their words and
their way of being. Excepting at the reception, and I really had
a
good time at the reception.
First of all, I met Mark,
who had been the client in the interview, and was able to talk a little more
with him about my feelings.
I would really like to
know, I would really like to follow through,
and see whether that had an
impact on him, that day. I had something
of a feeling that it
did. Then, quite informally, I had a
conversation,
first with two young women
who initiated some questions about women's
groups, and I talked with them
about my intimacy paper. Some young men
joined the group, and others—1
think there probably were about six or
eight by the time we finished. And we had a very good personal, lively
exchange, I think. In fact, I promised to send, and have sent,
copies
of a couple of papers to
one of the young women. I felt that was
the
one place where I got close
enough to a person to feel his or her real-
ness that day.
It's located in a
beautiful spot: I've never seen more
magnificent mountains than those we drove through, down along the valley
on our way back to Stellenbosch from the Swiss restaurant. And I was
glad for the first time to
see people at work, as they were in the
farm commune, which I think
you said were colored. That was very
interesting to me; also the fact that they did not resent being photographed.
I was very hesitant to
go, to take the photograph, as I had been, and
I'm sorry now, all the
way through Kwandebele, and a good deal of
glad that we did stop at
that farm. Women and children were
there,
doing their laundry, with all
the farm animals around.
CARL: Yes, I felt we saw there a stable community
of colored people who probably owned their own land, which is very rare for
non-
whites to own their own land,
and they seemed quite content with their
lot. It was really a very
nice experience with them.
Having talked about Stellenbosch, I'll talk about the very different feelings I
had about the energy at the Hohenhort Hotel conference
in Capetown.
There the energy seemed very receptive and positive and warm; even the
hotel staff were most understanding and really a very loving group. And the audience, the
participants, were eager and responsive, and I felt very much connected
there. The whole ambiance of the hotel
and the conference was good.
I know as we were going
into that conference that weekend, I remember quite clearly my feelings;
so I had some very
positive feelings, along with the mild anxiety that
I always feel when I'm
going to meet with a new group.
RUTH: I think the climate had already been created
in the
Hohenhort Hotel. The friendliness, the informality, the
genuine
interest in people which we felt
in the staff, the fresh arrangements
of flowers everywhere
(CARL: Um-hmm), the personal interest which
people took in one another
seemed to me a part of the whole climate
of that hotel. And I think the people who are—what did they
call
themselves? "Seekers of the Divine Light”—were kind of a
non-sectarian religious group, that they certainly created a good atmosphere.
I felt very relaxed
there. In fact, I wasn't aware of
feeling
tension as I did in
CARL: I felt real tension at the start in
facing six hundred people in
seats bolted to the floor, knowing that
there was no opportunity, no
facilities for smaller groups to meet,
and I felt it was a very difficult challenge to be with
that group
from Friday evening straight
through to Sunday afternoon with just tea
breaks and meal breaks. I felt we met that challenge, but initially I
felt quite uneasy about it.
RUTH: I had the sense in Capetown
that people knew one another;
many of those people had
been in other groups, met with other groups
before that, in community work
or elsewhere. But I did feel again
their receptivity. I felt very welcome, felt an
eagerness not only
to listen there, to come
to learn, but a spontaneity and a willingness
to take on responsibility
for their own, which showed up very quickly
in the small groups. The response to the
men/women group for example.
And you probably are
right that part of it had to do with the increased
ease on our part.
CARL: One thing in the Capetown
weekend that I felt very strongly
was my admiration for Jean Naidoo. Her
passionate statement that one
person could make a difference
even in the South African culture was a
tremendously stirring event, and I
think a lot of people were stirred
by that. I was so grateful that we had had the chance
to meet with the
group in her home, that very
diverse group representing so many colors
and nationalities and
beliefs. It was a most rewarding and
exciting
learning experience.
RUTH: And after having met her and with that group
in her home
in
and poems from her,
realizing how large was her vision. She
literally
gave her life, I think; she
died only a few weeks ago. Which means I'm
doubly glad to have had that
experience.
I'm thinking of two
women in
expressed, a hope that although
they might not live to see a new structure and a new system in
children into a climate where
they could live in a different world, and
would expect and really
demand a different world, another kind of world.
Jean Naidoo,
with her two boys and one girl, the youngest being the
girl, who is twelve, spoke
of their dedication to a new place for blacks
and colored, Indians, in
the South African culture—very active in the
student groups and so on. And then I think of Daphne in
saying "I will not see
these changes take place in my lifetime, but I
want my children to grow up
being proud that they're black and proud that
they're living in
forward look.
CARL: I think of Amanda and Hester, and some of the
people we met
at Jean Naidoo's home. You
could feel the ferment of a new
coming up through the crevices
and cracks. It's quite possible that if
the government becomes more
oppressive, those sprouts of a new order will
be crushed, but there's
also the possibility that these do represent the
beginnings of a really new time in
that a few people mentioned
to me that they thought the apartheid system
would drop of its own weight,
that young people simply did not accept it
and when they were old
enough to come into power, it would simply drop
of its own heavy weight.
RUTH: So that it's not just the new black
generation, but the
white as well, maybe for
different reasons, but nevertheless who are no
longer bowing to that kind of
law.
CARL: I think one
instance of that kind of ferment was shown in
the men/women group in the Capetown weekend. To
have people talking
openly about their love lives
and about abortion and relationships
outside of marriage and
feelings of insecurity in marriage and so on,
and feelings of insecurity
about developing a male sex role: topics like
that are just not discussed
in
very openly and freely in
that group, and they came to a better under-
standing of each other, better
understanding I think of relationships
between men and women, and it
certainly sparked much discussion outside.
So that it was a very
exciting new experience, I think, for those that
were involved and for those
that listened to them.
RUTH: This thought just came to me: The men/women group in
town was very effective in
bringing out the issues. I wonder
whether
the men/women group in Capetown was more effective because there had
been a women's group before
it? (CARL: Could be, could be.) They
already had expressed some of those
views in a smaller group, and the
men had said that they
would like to have a men's group. And
then one
of the men spoke up and
said "Why not have a men/women's group for
all of us," which was
a very nice compromise. But I felt too
that
with both of them there was
a great deal more of reaching for more in-
sight, more understanding
between men and women.
CARL: As I look back after several months, I feel
that this was a
trip that was full of learnings for me.
One of them was that I learned
how difficult it is to
truly understand and empathize with an alien
culture. To try to understand the Afrikaans ruling
class for example
was very difficult for
me. And the contrast between that and
trying
to understand the tribal
traditions represented by Credo or even
more sharply different
traditions of the Masai gave me a real object
lesson in the length of time
it takes and the openness of mind that
it takes to really
understand the views and beliefs and convictions
of people in another
culture.
I also believe that we
left some sparks behind us that we did
make a small but perhaps a
lasting difference in some of the relationships between the racial groups and
between men and women.
I think of Africa as a
land of unused resources. So much energy
is used up in enforcing their rules and regulations and in developing more and
more sophisticated controls over people that many of the psychological
resources go totally unused. It's a real
tragic situation in that respect.
RUTH: That called up for me a way in which I have
linked some of
Fritjof Capra's ideas in The
Turning Point and what I saw happening in
Africa. I also saw it in Mexico more recently, in
Mexico last summer
to a less degree, and in
our own Learning Experience in the East.
And that is, that Fritjof Capra believes that a part of the transformation
which he sees in the offing involves a new paradigm for learning.
And when I think of
learning as we have approached it, learning by the
Whole person, then it
becomes also not only learning but a way of
being, a paradigm for real
change. And when I saw the hunger of
people
in
certainly a very different kind
of learning from what they get in a
university usually, I was moved to
go back and look at what Fritjof Capra
had said, that at present
there is no well established framework for
this kind of learning, of
education or learning. But that there
are
in many places around the
world small groups or individuals who are
developing new ways of thinking
and organizing themselves according to
new principles. And, he said, this will mean the gradual
formation of
a network, interlocking,
intercommunicating, who are finding these
new pathways to learning by
the whole person, and opening up human potential. Freeing the individual human organism, he
says, to get in
touch with and to trust her
or his innate wisdom—and "innate wisdom"
strikes a chord with me for
of education, and poses a
threat to the entrenched educational institutions. But I see this stirring taking place in all
these different
parts of the world. And it
seems to me although this is only one alternative—it can go this way or it can
go the other way to more destruction—but it seems to me that this gave me a
real thrill, to feel that I was part of those small groups working here and
there all over the world, and fortunately have been able to see myself as the
kind of link between two or three or four of them.
CARL: Yes, I think that we added to that network,
helping to
build it in
have had contact with that
kind of network in
Italy, France, Germany,
England, Australia—it really is exciting to know
that there exists a whole
network of people who are working in a way
that would bring about a
really sharp shift in our way of learning, our
way of being, as you say.
RUTH: And I think just now I realized that there
was innate wisdom in listening when I decided that all I could do was
to be, that I
didn't go trying to tell somebody
something, when I'm sure I knew
much less about it than they
did.
CARL: This doesn't particularly fit in anywhere,
but I want to
give a little bit of the
impression that I have of the area around
Capetown. I was struck by what I would call the "Dutchness" of Stellenbosch. Those homes were really colonial Dutch, and
all the buildings,
and all of them white,
which is also symbolic. Then I loved the
overwhelming beauty of the coastline.
That was a gorgeous seacoast along
there. I was fascinated by the tempestuous meeting
of the two oceans.
I don't know that I've
ever seen that before. And the majesty
of the
peaks around the
and the harsh poverty of
the
So there again you get
the contrast which is so deeply a part of South
Africa: beauty and
possibility and resources and potential, and along-
side. of
that the black underside of life in
RUTH; That calls up Something of our trip
from
impressed me greatly. We would go first in Johannesburg—these flat topped
mountains of tailings from the mine, and I remember the comment
that they're dumping there
and then water seeping through and poisoning
their water supply means that
they're making all of our mistakes only
faster. But then as we went north there were great
expanses of grain
and the granaries, the
elevator. There was the flatland and
then
moving into the higher land
the mountainous areas with steep hills and
roads winding in serpentine
fashion down the steep mountain tracks.
Such beautiful clear
deep blue skies I think I have never seen, and
the mountains of clouds
that just pile up and up and up were really
unmatched in anything I
remember. Then I noticed in Krueger
National
Park I got the feeling
that life is very hard here: it's dry,
the
grass is brown and brittle,
animals foraging, greenery so sparse that
when you did see a few trees
you knew there had to be a waterhole or
[a] small stream
there. The overgrazing, animals being pressed further and
further into a smaller area, which is overgrazed. The drought - of course it was
dry season - but I
understand that that even extended into the so called
wet season. But it seemed to me that outside of the
cities and the privileged, that life was hard and maybe hard for the privileged
in a very different way.