Lessons Learned at UCT

Before arriving in South Africa, I had not realized that the extent to which the legacies of the apartheid continue to permeate society.  According to Professor Nattrass, the University of Cape Town, along with most other institutions in South Africa, practices affirmative action.  Unlike the United States, however, affirmative action in South Africa intends to elevate the majority race rather than the minority.  The competition for white students is therefore apparently very harsh – only white students with top credentials are accepted, while, in Professor Nattrass’s words, B-grade black students may gain seats.  This trend holds true even at the graduate school level.  Yet most of these students, irrespective of race, are from economically privileged backgrounds.  Thus, affirmative action merely appears to punish the white population for their apartheid policies rather than attempt to extend opportunities to truly disadvantaged populations.  Though I can understand the rationale behind such affirmative action, I’m not sure if this is the best way to address the racial divides.  These policies have actually seemed to elicit more interracial tension and resentment than reconciliation.  And despite efforts to integrate the races at UCT, as Marieme and I observed, black students predominantly talk with black students, Indian students with other Indians, and whites with other whites.  The divisions of society are thereby perpetuated, even in an institution that actively attempts to combat the repercussions of apartheid. 

Nevertheless, the South Africa I experienced is markedly different from the South Africa I had learned about in class.  I could observe the immense progress since the apartheid and Mbeki’s notorious AIDS denialism just by walking the halls of UCT.  In the corner of a bathroom at UCT stood a dispenser bearing the words, “PREVENT HIV/AIDS , WEAR A CONDOM.”  The black packets, each adorned with a red ribbon, contains ten condoms each – evidence of the university’s tireless efforts to curb the pandemic.  Posters that advertised lectures on “HIV/AIDS and Masculinity” and “HIV/AIDS and Religion” seemed to indicate that HIV is no longer a closeted term, but rather a common acronym in public discourse.   This openness was a refreshing and promising alternative to the bleak picture of stigma painted in my classes at Yale.  It was tempting to believe that my professors had exaggerated the controversy surrounding the disease, and that South Africa as a whole was ready to not only accept the biological basis of transmission and control, but also achieve universal access to preventative measures and ARVs.  Unfortunately, one look outside the UCT bathroom window, at the fashionably dressed students with their evidently expensive summer dresses and shades, reminded me that I was only observing the educated upper crust, in stark contrast to the impoverished children with whom the rest of the Reach Out group volunteered.  It troubled me when Professor Nattrass told me that even this cohort had difficulty accepting their own chances of HIV infection.  The university’s previous campaign, in which signs that read “the Face of an HIV(+) Student” hung above mirrors lined with condoms, was aborted because students were too uncomfortable with the idea that HIV could strike anyone.  If this was the case in an elite institution, what was the reality of HIV prevention in other impoverished or remote areas within South Africa?

- Pooja Yerramilli