This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: June 27, 2008 - Dear Friends in St. Louis and Readers of the St. Louis Beacon:
I have been in South Africa as a Fulbright Senior Specialist consulting with the University of Kwa ZuluNatal (UKZN) law faculty regarding the development of its dispute resolution curriculum. It's actually going to be very helpful to me in my new assignment to build a dispute resolution program for the Law School at Washington University.
I also am connecting with this year's team of Washington University and St. Louis University law students who are doing public interest law internships here for 10 weeks. They are working for the Legal Aid Board of South Africa and for Black Sash, a nonviolent white women's resistance organization. This is our seventh summer here - actually winter.
The students are doing great work for indigent defendants, for immigrants and for refugees, whose numbers are on the increase in the wake of the recent xenophobic arracks. I also connected with our UKZN exchange student, Kershwyn Bassuday, who spent the past semester at Wash U. He just got back to Durban from St. Louis two weeks ago - and is homesick for St. Louis!
I had a lovely few days in Cape Town when I first arrived with my law colleague from the University of Missouri, which has had a collaborative partnership with the University of Western Cape for 25 years.
Seven of our 10 law students are down there now taking a comparative constitutional law course with Pierre de Vos, one of the country's top constitutional experts, through the Missouri/Western Cape summer school law program. De Vos has a very thoughtful and influential blog: http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/
My hotel looks over the beachfront in Durban, and I love waking up to the sun over the water. I wish that everything here in South Africa were as sunny. But such is not the case.
People here seem demoralized in a way that I have not see in my earlier eight trips since I first came in 2001.
Poverty and crime are rampant, so many people lack decent housing, health care for HIV/AIDS and other more treatable illnesses, such as tuberculosis, is not accessible, especially for women and children.
Unemployment is widespread.
This is not new. What's new seems to be the doubts whether the Mandela promise of a job, a home and a non-racialized society will actually come true.
Maybe it is the fact that millions of dollars are being spent on new stadiums and hotels for World Cup 2010 and the fact that there is little new housing or new jobs that are making people feel helpless.
Perhaps it's because South Africa is not intervening in Zimbabwe while the news from there is so demoralizing. Robert Mugabe said he would go to war if he losr the election!
Or, maybe it's the lack of leadership from South Africa President Thabo Mbeki and Africa National Congress president Jacob Zuma's impending trial that make folks worry about a leadership vacuum.
Charlayne Hunter Gault presented a terrific series about South Africa on National Public Radio recently. She too suggests that South Africa is at a crucial juncture. Here is a link to her series, "Uneven Growth Leaves South Africa's Poor Behind" :
Of course, there are reasons to be hopeful. Cati Vawda, director of the Children's Rights Centre in Durban, continues to do important work, and Yousuf Vawda is developing a wonderful Public Health Law program at UKZN.
T P Pillay is still fighting the good fight at the Legal Aid Board, as is Evashnee Naidoo at Black Sash.
Asha Ramgobin is still working with international human rights clinic throughout southern Africa through her Human Rights Development Initiative. And, many more folks are doing great things in the face of tremendous challenges.
I just keep thinking that we are very lucky.
Hope all is well wherever you are.
Karen Tokarz is Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law andPublic Service and professor of African and African American Studies atthe Washington University School of Law. She is director of the Dispute Resolution Program and is a frequent visitor to South Africa.