FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO AMERICA AND BACK

I have a very low threshold for bullies. A part of me has always recognized that bullying is just a softer word for psychological torture.  I find it terribly painful when people wield their power to inflict unnecessary suffering on others.  And because we don’t exist in a vacuum, the ripple effects of that suffering impact everyone around us. For every life that President Trump has thrown into chaos and turmoil and fear since becoming president just a few months ago, there are so many others affected.  

Those same health care workers, park rangers, VA employees, scientists and medical researchers who’ve been fired by the tens of thousands without warning, are also dealing with health issues, are caregivers for elderly parents and have children with special needs.  

About 30% of federal workers are veterans, “employees who have been serving the American people for years, in uniform and in civil service.”  https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2025/2/vfw-calls-on-administration-congress-to-stop-indiscriminate-firing-of-veterans

David Brooks, the author and political and cultural commentator, who has been a political centrist/moderate Republican for many years, describes the chaos in the Federal Government. 

“I’ve lived in Washington a long time. I have a lot of friends who serve in government locations… some of them in national security, some of them fighting sex trafficking, some of them trying to boost democracy in Africa, some of them in medical research.

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had in the last week… of people who are traumatized, who have described a reign of terror in their agencies.  But not only that – a reign of incompetence. 

Mostly it’s a form of psychological intimidation that is sweeping through agency after agency and making a government that is semi-functional.” 

And we’ve seen what happens when anyone disagrees with or stands up to Trump.  He fires them or calls for their impeachment.  People are frightened, not only for their positions, but for the physical safety of themselves and their families.  

As someone who immigrated to the United States as a young adult, from a country where there was no room for any argument, where dissent led to imprisonment or house arrest, what is happening in this country today, is feeling sickeningly familiar. 

South Africa.  The country that wrote the playbook on white supremacy.  Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire who Trump has given free range to tear apart the lives of tens of thousands of working people, was born there too.  When I lived there, the majority of the population who were black and who had been living there long before white people arrived, had to carry passes when they went into white areas, were not allowed to attend the same schools as white children, were forbidden to sit on the same beaches and eat at the same restaurants.  It was the country where falling in love with someone of another race was a crime.  

As was homosexuality. Under South Africa's ruling National Party from 1948 to 1994 (the era of apartheid) homosexuality was a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison. 

Where I grew up, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion were not only considered threats to the status quo, they were sins and crimes.  

When Trump quoted Napoleon Bonaparte on social media, proclaiming “He who saves his country does not violate any law,” I immediately thought of the South Africa I grew up in, where exclusion of the non-white population was considered neither illegal or immoral because it was the law and was considered to be saving the country. 

In his book My Traitor’s Heart, the South African journalist Rian Malan, whose great uncle DF Malan was one of the architects of apartheid, writes: “I opened a book called The Super Afrikaners… and discovered… both my father’s brothers were in it. The were both Broederbonders, members of the Brotherhood, the secret society of the Calvinists and apartheid zealots that constituted the spine of the Afrikaner power structure. The prime minister, his cabinet, most Afrikaner MPs, and all senior civil servants were Brothers. The Brotherhood’s invisible hand controlled the state broadcasting corporation, the censor board, the police, the education system, and probably the army too. The Brotherhood was a sinister organization, ruthlessly dedicated to the aggrandizement of Afrikaner power, and the imposition of doctrinal purity on South African minds.”

I remember only too well the holding up of the Bible while using tactics of power and fear to tear down and inflict fear and suffering on other human beings. 

And yet, in the ultimate gaslighting, we were indoctrinated to believe that we were living in a democratic country.  I still remember reciting throughout my years at school:  South Africa is a democratic country.  For the people, by the people of the people.  

The rapid-fire pace with which Trump is purging our national websites, data bases and institutions of anything that refers to the diverse races and cultures that make up the United States, country, or reminds us that our history is not all glorious and honorable, is unapologetically copying the apartheid playbook.  

Like most other immigrants who fell in love with America because we saw freedoms and opportunities in a way we’d never seen before, it hurts to see what’s been happening here – how very un-American it’s become in the last few months.  And how intent Trump is on making his own rule of law. 

In 2020, when General James Mattis blasted Trump for using the National Guard and police to fire tear gas at a peaceful protest purely for his own gain, I paid attention.  

“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/04/869262728/read-the-full-statement-from-jim-mattis

I know how much easier it is to dehumanize “the other” so you can fit them/us into a box and pit us against one another.  Stereotyping and black and white thinking is cheap and lazy and dangerous. 

It hurts to think of teachers who want to teach the history of the United States  – in all its glory and shadows.  We need to hear the stories of Holocaust survivors and Navaho Code Talkers and the descendants of slaves and of high-ranking women in careers where they were previously excluded. We need to hear the stories of immigrants and refugees who have contributed in so many ways to this country, so we can be inspired by their resilience and learn from them. 

I recently went to a celebration of life of a dear friend who will be terribly missed. Without fail, everyone who stood up and talked about my friend, said she provided a safe place for them to be themselves. Personally, and professionally.  I cannot think of a higher measure of success. 

To me a Democracy represents an unwieldly, messy, but ultimately safe place to live and grow, where there’s room at the table for conversation and disagreement. When we are threatened and intimidated into compliance – not from outside threats but from our elected leader -- we are no longer living in a democracy.  

As a mother and grandmother, I’m constantly aware of and tuned in to the physical and emotional needs of families, especially the children.  As Dr. Jody Carrington, the psychologist and writer, says, “If the big people aren’t ok, the little people won’t be either.” 

And right now, hundreds of thousands of people in this country -- of all ages -- are not ok.  

It hurts to see my husband and so many of our friends worrying about the future of social security after working hard and paying into the system for so many years. We are scared of losing what we’ve earned and what we depend on. 

And it hurts to hear the fear in another friend’s voice, telling me how worried she is about her adult trans daughter going anywhere in public. 

How can eradicating our history and throwing so many lives into chaos and fear be a good thing for this country in any way, including economically? How can lifting people up, and investing in healthy children, families and communities be bad? 

As ominous as all this is feeling, it’s encouraging to see people who are able to do so, speak out in any way they can.  If President Frederik Willem de Klerk and Nelson Mandela could come together and find a way to peacefully end apartheid in 1994, I have to have hope we can find a peaceful way back to our constitutional freedoms and American values too. 

Top photo: Sign on Cape Town beaches from 1948 to 1994, the apartheid years. Getty Images. 

Bottom photo:  Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk.  From The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.