San rock art: a sparkle for innovation

Figure 1 - Human evolution. About six million year ago
in Africa, the chimpanzee lineage and our own split

The first Hominids have most probably seen the day in Africa. Or at least it is what seem to conclude the numerous paleontology research expeditions throughout the past decades, including the notable discovery of Lucy in 1974 and, in 2001 of the Sahelanthropus tchadensis Tumai, in the Chadian desert. "Modern" human beings have 99.9% of their genetic heritage in common. This established fact sustains by itself that the notion of race amongst human beings is absurd. The fossils have made a great contribution to the understanding of the development of humankind.

In search of the art and culture that has inspired human innovation, nowadays we are able to retrace the creative visions of some of South Africa's foremost artists, such as the ancient San, on an 80,000-year path. Their fascinating beliefs together with their experiencing of rituals such as hunting and the trance dance have made the San rock art perhaps the best known of all of Africa's rock arts. It is also now amongst the best understood. For decades, researchers believed that the art was simply a record of daily life or a primitive form of hunting magic. Those were the days of gaze and guess, when it seemed that the longer one gazed at the art, the better one's guess would be as to its meaning. Thankfully, those days are gone and by linking specific San beliefs to recurrent features in the art, researchers have been able to crack the code of San rock art.

Figure 2 - The San People have been found to be the
most ancient people in the world with a genetic DNA
more diverse than any other

One of the most complex and sophisticated symbolic arts is revealed. Beyond a depiction of life, the art focuses on a particular area of San experience: the spirit world journeys of San shamans.

Figure 3 - San shamanic dance. A lengthy festive
gathering around the campfire for access to the outer world 

Many features from the important trance dance may be acknowledged like the manner in which the shamans gained access to the spirit world. The rock art is full of dancers with antelope hooves, indicating that they have taken on antelope power, just as San shamans in the Kalahari describe today. Shamans can be depicted climbing up the so-called "threads of light" that connect the sky-world and some sort of trance flight is described.

To illustrate experiences, artists used metaphors such as showing shamans to be underwater or dead. These translate passages of the rough and long trance journeys. The artists also drew shamans' actions in the spirit world, such as their capturing of the rain animal, and their activation of traditional pharmacology for use in healing or in fighting off enemies and dangerous forces.

The art is however far from just a record of spirit journeys. Powerful substances such as eland blood were put into the paints so as to make each image a reservoir of possibles. Each generation of artists painted or engraved layer upon layer of art on the rock surfaces and created potentially spiritual places.

Figure 4 - San rock art in one of the Kalahari's
hundreds of caves

On the South African eastern seaboard, the impacts of traders, slavers and explorers from Africa and countries around the Indian Ocean goes back to tens of thousands of years ago.
Traces of these pasts are still being discovered, or re-discovered and re-interpreted as our interests and approaches evolve. New archaeological sites are excavated, forgotten documents resurface, and new questions are asked of known sources.
With the huge developments in computer-aided research and digital equipment, and increasing affordability of high-tech processes, there are fresh opportunities for researchers to get access to information and give our contemporary world the opportunity to benefit from the rediscovery of these ancient masterworks.

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabanta - We are people through other people

A chat with the guards at the entrance and there we were, in the compound wondering our own way, guided by this yet-unexplainable curiosity for identities.

Figure 1 - The Origins Centre, Johannesburg, SA
"We are who we are because of who we were"

We started off the unexpectedly passionate exploration of the origins of humankind on earth. Hypnotizing.
Barely passed the introduction, we stumbled upon the place's porter, Brian. Brian had come across displacing a couple of chairs on his trolley and was curious to discover what books we were carrying in our vests. The poor travel guides had started an incredibly enlightened 40-minute long conversation, right in the middle of the busy hall. And there we were talking about our favorite subject : Identity.

It took Brian 2 minutes watch in hand to put us off. We couldn't believe our ears the extent of knowledge that was slipping out of his mouth. With his worn out t-shirt, his ol' shorts and half-torn shoes, Brian was one of a very few unsuspected over-cultivated persons. Reminding us of some of the great thoughts and actions french intellectuals had fostered on the old continent in the "lights century", Brian was contextualizing the extraordinary voyage of discovery we were about to experience - which begins with the origins of humankind, in Africa, and then moves through the development of art, symbolism, and technology around the world.

Figure 2 - The national library of Johannesburg, city's 
architectural heritage

Soon enough, the question of the astonishing lack of francophone literature available at the national library of Johannesburg, of which the dedicated shelves left about six times the size of the available contents in empty space, came up. To our surprise, he was aware. And admitted frankly that many books had been put away. As we asked why and where, he shamefully admitted that access to some knowledge was being withheld.
How was it possible for South Africa to hinder knowledge from its people and especially within a purposefully built and maintained place? It appeared to us as if Brian was supporting this initiative. Seeking for justification, he put forward the idea that we should limit access to some knowledge in order to contain risks of popular uprisings. "If you give these guys the keys, you don't know what other catastrophe you're up to"; "it's for everyone's own good".

Figure 3 - The knowledge triangle

Going on, he asked us what we thought about it and without any surprise came out the certitude that access to knowledge should be free. That no one could ever be entitled to grant exclusivity of knowledge to any one else. Knowledge can't be constrained to will and withholding any form of knowledge can only be a source of destruction on the long run. We never figured out if he had agreed with what seemed to us an evidence. His reflective silence was either the mirror of a shy agreement or the translation of his disagreement to our suggestions. We opted for the first assumption. After all, he did possess and use the impressive, rich knowledge of his on human kind and had demonstrated his awareness on the general, extensive progress freedom of information had undergone, with the debatable repercussions this evolution had had on the human condition.

Figure 4 - Improving knowledge

Brian went on with his teachings, plenty of intelligible facts and stories. His intellect was probably the fruit of his 8-year long work period alongside archaeologists and the subsequently encouraged curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Finally pointing out to the human intelligence and how it had all been a matter of destroying our own kind's achievements throughout the thousands of years, he brought to our consciousness the feelings one has upon awakening and their relation with the true contents of our dreams and nightmares. Whereas the body requires so much rest per day; the brain itself never shuts, never rests. It remains indefinitely active. Or at least until the body experiences a total shut off.
And although unanimously experienced, which one of the 7 billion-strong human beings on earth was able to admit consciousness of thoughts at sleep? No one.

Figure 5 - The toughest code yet to break: our Genome

Figure 6 - An artist's impression on
a Genome breakthrough

Brian went on exposing the eternal and unique identity card each and every being on earth holds and indefectively transmits to his descendants : the Genome.
Constituted of this infinitely slow variability of thousands of gene chains each and every cell of ours holds, it is indeed the sole path to the discovery of who we are, who we have been and where we come from - as a species. These questions could very well constitute the ultimate human expedition. The decryption of who we are and why we are what we have become: the result of the identity baggage we have perpetually accumulated and lost from the sun rise of our existence to the sunset of this day.

Figure 7 - Mysteries of the human brain

Enabled with astonishing ease and logic, Brian had tightly bridged the gap between the 2 greatest mysteries of the human kind: the brain and the genome.
It was clear now that the cerebral activity of our sleep was the uninterpreted talk of our genome. Condemned to indefinitely pass by our consciousness and assuredly the resurgence of hundreds of years we - as the human kind - had witnessed and experienced. All of a sudden came to our consciousness the fascinating eventuality of having already encountered, in our unconscious sleepiness, some of our eldest ancestors, a part of their liveliness, bribes of their thoughts, wonders of conception and other sensations, specificities of their living that we were, by nature, barred from envisioning and understanding.

Of course, our conversation went a little further, a little longer.

We had realised how humanity in itself was a race to knowledge. How beyond the notion of race, color of skin, gender and sex - no individual could righteously prevent knowledge from any other individual. How as such, the 7 billion-strong of us were standing on an equal foot.

We had realised that time, as one of the best remedies for one's greatest tragedies, was inversely holding us from grasping the most precious ins and outs of our existential debate.

We had realised that the rightful place of the African continent could be restored in history - at the very beginning of mankind's journey to humanity.

   

Humanity's origins in Africa

When the first sun rose

It found us awake and awaiting

Long before others came to these hills

Our footsteps shaped the landscape

Tamed the buffalo and the gemsbok

We rode the wind

We silenced the hurricane

Yes, look at us

We have been here before.


Don Mattera
South African poet and author
Founding member of the Black Consciousness movement

Read his autobiography: "Memory is the weapon", Ravan Press, 1987

The real politics struggle and the ever-lasting path to liberation

Figure 1 - Steve Biko
"The most potent weapon
of  the oppressor is the
mind of the oppressed"

Reduced to a simple object, the African was made an outsider in an already sick, unsustainable society.

In 1973 and 1976, several riots put an end to this rugged, dark period. The movement of the Black Consciousness (or BC, a non-violent current of thought imported from the USA, influenced by the Black Theology - aimed at restoring the dignity and identity of the black people) conducted by Steve Biko - "a young and brilliant student" of the University of Durban-Westville which engaged himself in politics in his early 20s and became a founder of the black student union SASO; "a symbol and martyr of the anti-Apartheids"; "the South African Che Guevara" - gives extraordinary hope and impulse to several youth movements.

In 1976, a revolt erupts in the schools of Soweto in reaction to a new rule on the education of the Black - imposing the teaching of certain disciplines as compulsory in the Afrikaans language - and sets fire to the country as a whole making it increasingly uncontrollable. Progressively, industrials and foreign powers seek refuge, protecting their investments by discretely changing political sides.

Figure 2 - Nelson Mandela returns to Soweto 4 days
after his release from Victor Verster prison
in Paarl, South Africa

But 13 more years of struggle will be necessary for the government to resign himself in freeing Nelson Mandela (1990) and engage in talks with the black political unions. A difficult and time consuming compromise allows the definitive liberation of the country. On the 27th of april 1994, despite intense fighting between the Zoulou nationalist organisation (Inkatha) and the Mandela supporting ANC (African National Congress) - which flooded the country with bloodshed violence - the first multiracial, democratic elections take place and the ANC triumphs with 62% of votes. Three hundred years following colonisation.

In 1999, the ANC wins the presidential elections once more and Nelson Madela passes on his power to Thabo Mbeki, his apprentice. Thabo Mbeki was reelected in 2004, 10th anniversary of the young, multiracial democracy.
The FIFA seizes this occasion to allocate the organisation of the 2010 football world cup to South Africa - the first African country to host such event. In turn, the country has undoubtedly benefited from a materialized international recognition although once more, the financial face of the competition was mismanaged and has engendered widespread scandals and abuse. The unprecedented touristic pic reached in June 2010 quickly dropped, returning to no more than average.

Figure 3 - Thabo Mbeki, 2nd President of the
Republic of South Africa;
now African Union mediator

Thabo Mbeki's efficiency in handling power is much contested as the AIDS issue was denied under his reign. The distribution of antiretrovirals (AVRs) was refused until 2003. Also, criminal records have notably pilled up. Today, South Africa is the most AIDS-affected country in the world with over 1/5 adults contaminated.
During his second term, president Mbeki has had to develop his politics with vice-president Jacob Zuma (the actual president), charged in 2005 for traffic of influence in an alleged fraud and corruption affair linked to french armament group Thales. Mbeki dismisses his VP which then becomes his greatest enemy.

Most recently, Zuma is also severely accused of the rape of an HIV-positive woman of which he will ridiculously and unacceptably respond that he has taken a shower afterwards - and the misappropriation of USD hundreds of thousands worth of public funds circumvented to his personal estates. Zoulou, Zuma has also spent 10 years behind the bars of Robben Island.

Figure 4 - An artist's impression of Jacob Zuma's run for SA presidency

The war of influence between the two political leaders takes a turn in 2007 when Zuma decides to prone purposeful left-wing political ideals. He is elected head of the ANC. Following a 2 year-long musical chair type political turmoil, Zuma finds himself in the simultaneous contradictory positions of future convict or future president. He is finally elected president of the Republic of South Africa in April 2009 after the much silenced Thales affair was evicted from the political scene.

In October the same year, an unprecedented strike of the public administration destabilizes power and after a 3-week long blockade, (closed schools, hospitals, etc.) the government decides of a payroll increase of 7.5% and the implementation of an 800 Rand housing indemnity. Zuma surpasses the first major difficulty of his term "successfully".

South Africa, which history?

Trying to recount the history of this country seems like putting yourself in the middle of a field of land mines. As may testify what we retain of the passage of human kind on earth, South Africa's history is a report typed by the "victorious".

Figure 1 - When the British 
government made its 
determination to uphold the 
annexation clear, the Boers 
turned to armed resistance 
in December 1880

The official version of this country's history was until very recently just a recital of the unstable compromise - established on the back of the black people - between the Boers (or "farmers" - the first white to establish themselves in colonies at the Cape, originally from northern Europe - Holland, France and Germany - and called the "Afrikaners" or "Europeans of Africa" at the end of the 19th century) and the British resulting from the anglo-boer war that took place between 1899 and 1902. And even around this partial story laid two distinct versions. The first was British and was to be considered as "the real one", the second was the one of the Boers which was considered to be "misleading" as it was simultaneously connoted as "archaic" and "africanised". Both of them have since then been revised by white anthropologists and historians. With access to university being granted to a much wider spectrum of the black South Africans, one may bet that revisions of the history may derive even further from reality.

Figure 2 - Voyage of Bartolomeu Dias
(1487-88) 

The southern African cape enters the European history in 1487 when Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias discovers the Cape of Good Hope. At the time, technological innovation in navigation eventually allowed to bypass obstacles to the European expansion - then blocked at the East by the Ottoman Empire -, going West and South. Most of what are established as Southern African historical facts have encountered numerous stories spread from mouth to ear for hundreds of years and hence are the result of multiple, ancient influences. Alternative stories haven't ceased to emerge in the recent years - non-negligibly affecting one's comprehension of the continent's history as a whole.

According to the 1996 Walter Sisulu drafted constitution, South Africa counts some 11 official languages with each province being granted the right to make its own linguistic choices by adopting a minimum of 2 official languages. English is spoken everywhere and Afrikaans in an important number of places. The country counts 9 African languages: zoulou, xhosa, swazi, tswana, venda, tsonga, pedi, sotho and ndebele. The two first being spoken by over 40% of the population. This country is hence characterized by a very important linguistic diversity, many speakers changing from one language to another in a same conversation.

Figure 3 - An artist's impression
of the Apartheid

For each spoken language, a different way of thinking, a different approach on life. So who would have bet that this country - long considered as one of the last civilised nations and for tens of years neglected - could chase its own demons and come back to the path of civil peace and respectability? The racial segregation regime (or Apartheid) established by the ruling white in 1948 was abolished on the 30th of June 1991. In April 1994, the South Africans took part in the first democratic and non-racial elections ever organised in their country. After 27 years of detention, the world's most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was becoming the most popular head of state of the planet. The new-born "rainbow nation" was then witnessing a true state of grace. For some time, South Africa's destiny was even in the hands of 3 peace Nobel prizes.

Figure 4 - South Africa,
a multiracial country

Despite real and ferocious violence, the country opted for the miracle solution of reconciliation. The profoundly humanistic philosophy of a handful of great men associated with an exceptional pragmatism, fostered one of the most spectacular political reversal of all times - not only avoiding civil war but also the leakage of capital and foreign investments which would have economically sunk the country.

In just 15 years, South Africa has become a democratic and multiracial nation arousing fascination around the world. Nevertheless, reconciliation isn't "all-black" nor is it "all-white" and the road to abolish social and economic segregation remains discouragingly long. In a vast majority of urban centers, one hops without transition - in the time lapse of a street crossing - from the most trendy and wealthy quarters to the most miserable townships.
   

Jo'burg in line !

We're glad to welcome you here, on the official African Wagon project blog ! Keep an eye on us throughout the journey to benefit from insights of some of the world's most beautiful, entrenched areas and get yourself a chance to encounter the Southern, Austral and Eastern Africa populations.

On the tracks of the mythic Cape-to-Cairo railway, our 11,077 km-long expedition will investigate 9 countries and attempt to witness some of our time's most promising ingenuity.

First step : Johannesburg, South Africa.

Sien jou binnekort !