Last week, instead of our regular class, we had a
guest speaker, who shared his experience of the apartheid. Tony shared with us
many details about his family and life experiences during and after the
apartheid. During the apartheid, he was classified as coloured and attended
school for coloured children. In order to be classified as coloured, he
received the pencil test. The pencil test was when someone would put a pencil
in your hair and if it fell out, you were considered either considered Colorued
or Indian; if it didn’t fall out you were considered Afrikkan/Black. It was really interesting to hear the first
hand account from someone who lived through the apartheid years. During his
talk, he included some history about South Africa.
One interesting piece of information from the history
was about the first racial murder. It occurred when the Dutch shot a Bushman
man, a native to South Africa, jumped out of a bush and surprised him. The reason he shot him is because he didn’t
expect to see someone jump from the bush and he felt threatened. The reason the
Bushman did was because it was his way of welcoming a stranger to his land. He
would jump out of a bush and then show some gesture of appreciation to the new
person. I was immediately shocked when Tony told us this, I couldn’t believe
that this would be the immediate answer for seeing a stranger. Hearing some of the stories that Tony told us
was really shocking and I really couldn’t believe that they happened. Tony’s lecture was really one of my favorite
lectures because it was interesting to hear first hand experience of someone
who experienced many of the things we had heard and read about and I really
liked how open he was with us. He didn’t sugar coat anything, which was
something I really liked because I feel like many people who may share their
experience never give the raw details of their experience. I really enjoyed his
talk and it gave me more insight on the happenings of apartheid.
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