Wikimania Cape Town was 18-22 July 2018. Fabian and I went to South Africa early for tourism and to be together. We arrived in Johannesburg on Monday 9 July and he stayed till 18 July, at which time he returned to New York as I began my conference. I left at the end of the conference.
It was the first time visiting Africa for both of us. We had researched online what we might do and it seemed that the major tourist attractions in Johannesburg had a theme of apartheid, so we wanted to learn what we could from the learning centers that people had made. From Johannesburg we went to Kruger National Park from 11-14 July. From there we went to Cape Town until returning to the United States.
Neither of us had much understanding of the culture of South Africa before arriving. Both of us felt much better informed through the trip, even though our perspective was gaining insight into the colonial experience rather than life of the native people. Because the colonial legacy seemed so strong to me I wanted to talk through some of what I did and thought and felt because the trip left me confused. I titled a series of posts as “Views of apartheid”. Although “apartheid” is supposed to mean the racial segregation policy in South Africa from 1948-1994, there is a lot of slime in the language and politics and society today and the racism must have started at the beginning of colonialism in the 1700s if not sooner. I use the word “apartheid” to mean all the problems, because so far as I can tell, there is no particular word in English for describing the entire colonial racist experience which continues to present. I feel conflicted with unfair conditions in South Africa and how I benefit from the unfairness even today. Also obviously I am the product of the privileged side of a colonial legacy from elsewhere and I get to use that advantage as I like.
It is not possible to get away from the dirt in society. In the lead up to Wikimania some people were questioning the ethics of hosting the event in a region of water scarcity. There are lots of ethical conflicts in travel. I do not put too much thought into the problems themselves. If I have a response to the problems then it would be in whatever activities I do without realizing that it is a response.
Thank you for sharing. I decided not to join this Wikimania. I have benn in Johannesburg in 2000 and saw the apartheid everywhere. I could not imagine how Wikimania could deal with this appropriately.