South African woman battled dual discrimination

In the decades before 1994, when apartheid ended in South Africa, Mpume Zondi was one of six children living in a small village steeped in poverty.

Struggling to survive with her family at a time when blacks lived with discrimination and bigotry due to their race, Mpume fought yet another form of discrimination: She was Roman Catholic.

She is now a visiting professor at The University at Albany. She arrived in Albany last August with her nine-year-old son, Nhloso. As part of a year-long visit, she will teach Zulu, the language of her people. They will return to South Africa in July.

She and her son are living at the Catholic Worker House in Albany. Last week, she spoke there about growing up Catholic in one of the poorest sections of her native country.

Education

"When I was growing up, whites with money were in control of politics, economics and everyday life," Prof. Zondi said. "At that time, few could enjoy the extravagances of a Catholic school education. I consider myself to be a lucky person."

Because her mother was a teacher in the parish grade school, she and her five siblings received a Catholic education at a time when most blacks were lucky to get any education at all.

Prof. Zondi hails from an eastern province that was called KwaZulu-Natal when she was growing up and that is now referred to as Natal.

Segregation

"When I was a young girl," Prof Zondi continued, "I remember seeing signs posted in parks, bus terminals and most public places. I could not understand them, though. My mother translated for me, saying that they either excluded blacks from certain areas or designated limited places where we could go. When I was that age, ten years old, I could read with no problem, but these signs were written in Afrikaans, one of the two 'official' languages of our country. The other was English."

Many blacks could not read Afrikaans because they spoke the languages of their provinces. Mpume learned English in school, but Zulu was her native tongue.

"Nine million blacks were segregated and isolated from whites and from each other," she said, adding that they were dispersed to "far reaches of land where living conditions were inhuman and life was very difficult."

Opportunity

With the help of her mother and older siblings who tutored her, Prof. Zondi was able to attend college on scholarships. She stressed the importance of having a Catholic school education at a time when many other blacks were not educated at all.

"Even though we had a public school system, everyone had to pay for their education. There was no such thing as a 'free' school system, like there is in the U.S.," she explained. "Many families could not afford to pay for their children's education because most lived in poverty."

In 1976, black students near Johannesburg began to riot. Mpume, who was 14, was greatly influenced by a poet named Benedikt Wallet Bambatha Vilakazi, who was a voice for the people.

"I was deeply inspired by his writings because he was one of the first to speak out for the people of our country, to address the inhumanity, injustices and painful, degrading system of dislocation that millions of blacks suffered through," she said.

Church's silence

Prof. Zondi said there was no attempt by the Church or any of the missionary priests to address apartheid.

"The Catholic Church was like everyone else," she said. "We were segregated at church, just as we were in society: White Catholics were served by white priests and sisters, and blacks had black priests and sisters.

"The priests tried to maintain the status quo. I think this was because most of them were from other countries; they did not have an interest in changing things for us. They were more concerned with doing what they were sent there to do and that would have been saving souls, not particularly questioning government [policies]."

Prof. Zondi described her homeland now as "a country of hope. We call ourselves the 'rainbow nation.' To our people, this means that we are now a blend of all colors, and hopefully these different colors will blend like the colors of the rainbow do, making one beautiful nation of people.

"Bitterness does remain, but so many find it hard to let go of the past. We can see a change in the new generations. The children are not as concerned with a person's color."

(02-13-03) [[In-content Ad]]