South Africa Forward

For the record, one of the venues where RantWoman cut her teeth striving for justice and equality was in the movements on US college campuses in the 1980's calling on universities to divest themselves of investments in companies that do business in South Africa. RantWoman has numerous back from the future thoughts about these movements; these thoughts may or may not ever make it into RantWoman's Quaker blog. RantWoman does want to write about South Africa through the eyes of actual Quakers, or at least one actual Quaker.

RantWoman recently looked up South African Friend and current FWCC clerk Dudu Mtshazo in the search engine of her choice. As a resident of a rich, internet intensive, super consuming country, RantWoman should not be surprised to learn that the worldwide web knows way less of Dudu Mtshazo than it does of RantWoman, either as RantWoman or in RantWoman's slightly more demure real name professional presence.

Yet RantWoman thinks of Dudu every time she thinks of mentors and is thinking of ways to equalize this visibility. RantWoman apologizes if using only Dudu's first name seems like bad protocol; it also seems profoundly Quakerly RantWoman asks her readers' indulgence and respect regardless.

RantWoman is not going to stop posting things to the language professionals networking site that emits a new internet blip--in several languages--every time RantWoman responds to questions in the language pairs she works with. RantWoman is not going to drown Dudu out in the same blog entry with some other reflections about the idioms of protest and political mobilization in the US. RantWoman is simply going to reflect on how Dudu's presence as Friend in Residence at the NPYM annual session several years ago grounded and inspired RantWoman.

First of all, RantWoman was profoundly inspired by Dudu's accounts of what a big deal it was for people of different races just to pray together.
RantWoman's knowledge of racial justice campaigns in the US is, um, spotty. RantWoman is pretty sure there are similar praying together stories in the US but Dudu's accounts gave RantWoman deep appreciation for the everyday acts of courage necessary to live testimonies about that of God in everyone under sometimes harrowing circumstances.

Dudu also spoke movingly of what a challenge it was after the end of apartheid for three categories of people, those who stayed, those who went to prison, and those who went into exile, to struggle together in a new South Africa.

Finally, Dudu was very caring about and respectful of another matter exercising Friends at that annual session, a planned march by a small group of white supremacists in North Idaho, an hour or so from the site of the Annual Session in Spokane.

RantWoman is very humble about how much better this kind of personal connection, stories of lived faith stick in her febrile, sometimes analytically inclined brain that turgid items about economics, development, and some slices of current events and thanks Dudu very much for her travels with her concerns.