Sparks and the elephant

Anger. It boils in my chest and erupts in my brain. It makes my muscles tense, toes and teeth clench… This is a feeling that I embrace all too often. In fact I’m just trying to release it now through writing this Blog and reflecting on my day. The fact that a Cape Town cab driver just overcharged me and my American friends, for a short ride back to the hotel (after a quick size-up), really irked me. I’d seen his like before in the Bronx, and I’d always walked away for a better deal. This time I had no alternative. So I ended up chipping in what amounted to a mere fraction over a dollar for the ride. Still, the thought of being ripped off had me seething. But now, I think of Sparks…

This afternoon the SokAfrica study group hopped onto the Susan Kruger, a ship headed to the breathtakingly gorgeous, though infamous Robben Island. The interstitial stretch of sea separating Cape Town and the island glittered under a cloudless sky, and was liquid playground for sea lions, dolphins, whales, and bobbing packs of penguins (it’s true, there are penguins in Africa). The equally diverse menagerie on the island itself would have been just as enthralling had it not been for the grim reality of its history.

Robben Island used to be a prison for individuals in opposition to the apartheid government. In fact, it was there that Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years behind bars. When we landed, the green hills, wild rabbits, and spring bok that greeted us on the shore all faded to the background in the presence of a former political prisoner named Sparks.

Sparks was seventeen in 1983, when he found himself incarcerated as a terrorist. He’d joined the military wing of a banned political party, the African National Congress (ANC), and had been found guilty of possessing illegal munitions and explosives. It’s easy to profess a willingness to jump into the revolutionary fray if only it were some romantic bygone time. It’s another thing to see the three by three meter cement floor cell that Sparks suffered in, or to hear of the solitary confinement, the beatings, the “special” thirty day diets of twice daily porridge, and the countless, demeaning psychological trials that he and his compatriots endured within those walls.

I watched this humble man speak on Robben Island, seventeen years after his release, with my mouth agape as he told his audience that he had befriended his former prison guards. How can I hold a grudge about someone looking at me the wrong way, stepping on my shoes, or overcharging me for a cab fare when Sparks can look his look his former tormentor in the eye without a glimmer of malice? This remarkable man said that he never sought revenge because he did not want South Africa to be a war zone, and that forgiveness was part of the healing process for him and his country. Wow.

One more remarkable person that I met today is another South African native named Rob. I’ll have to paraphrase his eloquence, but when I asked about his hopes for South Africa’s future in the next ten or twenty years he said that he hoped South Africa would be a beacon of hope, and an example for the rest of the world. He feels that the problems of his country are a highly visible microcosm of those that plague the globe at large. For that reason, he believes that his home nation holds an important key to unlocking the solutions for peace in our world. Unbridled anger is an unneeded ingredient for such solutions.

Dr. Melvin November, a Professor of the University of the Western Cape, recently told our study group that unchecked anger is like a rogue elephant destroying everything in its path. Even petty anger can balloon into the sort of hatred that has left a crippling legacy in South Africa today. After reflecting on what I’ve just heard and learned, I have serious reason to reign in my own elephant. I think Sparks would agree.

~Orpheus