Heavy

This morning I took a break from looking at fossils and went to the apartheid museum. It’s one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. It explains the history of European settlement in South Africa, the development of Johannesburg, and events that led up to apartheid. There were some pretty shocking pictures and exhibits depicting the horrific conditions that ‘colourds’ had to live in while whites in the country were prospering. My favorite quote from the museum: ‘When racism wins, everyone loses.’

The exhibit ends with a feel-good display showing Mandela, free elections, getting ready for the 2010 World Cup, how great South Africa has become, etc. Then I walked outside and was hit with the reality of Joberg today: blacks and whites who don’t make eye-contact as they pass each other on the sidewalk (much less say hello) and, pretty uniformly, black people working as waiters, cooks, taxi drivers, garbage collectors, newspaper vendors, street cleaners, baby-sitters, security guards, maids, gardeners, etc. for the white people.

I’ve also noticed, especially when traveling and my temper is shorter, it’s so easy to call people names in my head based on their age, sex, ethnicity, education level, language spoken, whatever. I find myself doing this when I get frustrated, and my mind reacts by putting that person down. What’s interesting to me is that I’ll label them in a way that they are different from me. For example: that person is so old, which is why they’re being slow and holding me up. Or, that person doesn’t have much education, so that is why they’re making this situation difficult when it could be so simple. In yoga we strive to see Atman, or the universal spirit, or God or whatever you want to call it in everyone. At the end of class we say Namaste, which means ‘the divine spirit in me recognizes the divine spirit in you’. The ‘goal’ of yoga is to see that we are all one, instead of seeing ourselves as individuals who have separate identities from other people. I can see what harm this concept of the individual, or ego, can cause – when you see other people as distinct entities from you, then it’s easy to treat them badly, act in a derogatory manner, see them as less than human and as unequal to you. No wonder that the world has such a history of treating other human beings so badly.

In Berlin I went to some museums about the history of the city, especially dealing with the rise of Hitler, WWII, and conditions under the communists and the construction of the Berlin Wall. I think I’ve been to the two most depressing cities in the world in the past two weeks, unless I stop by Hiroshima on the way home.