Lately I've been dreaming I'm back in the South Africa of my childhood. The South Africa where if you weren't White you were wrong. Where fear triumphed over truth. Where our newspapers were filled with "news" and "reporting" that had been meticulously censored by the government. Where you weren't allowed to criticize the Prime Minister or the National Party and where political activism could lead to prison or house arrest. You couldn't even drive around with a Question Authority bumper sticker on your car.
The dreams started in June, after U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump announced that The Washington Post would no longer be allowed at his campaign events. Mr. Trump didn't like what The Washington Post had said about him so he barred them from reporting on his campaign.
On another occasion he began his rally in New Hampshire without dedicated reporters present - then laughed about it. "I have really good news for you," he said. "I just heard that the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get here. I love it."
How could that be? How could anyone running for the highest office in the country be oblivious to one of the most basic tenets of our constitution - freedom of the press?
The last year that I lived in South Africa I took a journalism class. One of the students raised his hand and asked, "What's the point of becoming a journalist when we aren't allowed to tell the truth?"
Our teacher, a frail looking man with a shock of white hair paused a moment before responding. "If you want to write the truth, look around, make notes, then move to another country and write it."
Many South African writers did just that.
I was eighteen, becoming increasingly aware that the "facts" I'd been taught my whole life weren't necessarily the truth. As a child I lived near a beach where you could see Robben Island. All I knew about Robben Island was that dangerous men were imprisoned there. One of them was Nelson Mandela, though his name meant nothing to me. For the 18 years he was in prison there (he was imprisoned for 27 years altogether) his image and words were banned from our newspapers. It was for our own good, they said.
It was a crime to marry or fall in love or have "sexual relations" across the color line. It was a crime to be homosexual. Both these crimes resulted in imprisonment. If you were Black, which the vast majority of people were, you weren't allowed to vote.
And yet, for the twelve years that I attended my public White's Only all-girls school, we regularly recited these words: South Africa is a Democratic Country. For the People. By the People. Of the People.
We not only said these words, we believed them. Our brains were not only washed, but thoroughly scrubbed and bleached. We were told that Apartheid, our country's strict system of racial segregation and suppression, existed for the good of all and that dismantling it would result in a "bloodbath." Fear kept us all in our place.
At nineteen, I moved from Cape Town to California. On the streets of Santa Monica I saw a mixed race couple holding hands. I could barely restrain myself from rushing up to them and telling them how happy I was for them. At that moment I fell in love with my new country. The linked hands meant one thing to me: Freedom.
Thirty-seven years later, despite its flaws and failings, the United States is more beloved to me than ever. I have friends here of all backgrounds and political persuasions -- conservative, progressive and everything in between, and I'm the richer for knowing them all and for having to stretch my ways of thinking.
As part of Apartheid-era South Africa's manipulation and control of our minds, the country didn't get television until 1976. When we did, it was a few hours a day of strictly controlled programming. Mary Tyler Moore was my favorite.
It was considered too dangerous to expose us to the outside world. We were enough. We were strong. We were not dependent on the friendship and support of the international community that condemned Apartheid. It mattered not at all that we were banned from participating in international sports -- including the Olympic games -- because of our blatant violation of human rights. In fact, our leaders told us, we were better off for it.
So when Mr. Trump says America will be fine if NATO breaks up, insists he's the only one who can make America great again, wants to prevent all Muslims from entering our country, advocates building a wall (that he'll "force" Mexico to pay for) to keep out Mexican "rapists" and criminals, and tweets that he'll soon be known as "Mr Brexit," I'm hurled back to the South Africa of my youth.
The day I became an American citizen hundreds of us crowded into the San Diego Courthouse. Some had small crosses dangling from their necks, some wore hijabs, some wore yarmulkas , some saris. We spoke in different languages and accents and held onto our little American flags and copies of the Constitution like proud first graders who'd passed the most important test of our lives. Many of us had lived here for years, while others were still getting used to the astounding selection of cereals on the supermarket shelves.
If Mr. Trump had grown up lived in a country governed by a dictator, perhaps he'd think twice before praising President Putin for being a "strong leader." Maybe if understood what happens when freedom of the press is not embedded into the constitution, he wouldn't habitually denigrate, dismiss and hinder journalists from doing their job.
When he demeans and dehumanizes women I remember how the legally sanctioned dehumanization of people according to their skin color emboldened white South Africans to demean and dehumanize anyone we perceived as other.
Nothing good can come from judging people as inferior or dangerous based solely on religion, race, sexual orientation or gender. The success of the United States lies in its inclusivity, its ability to assimilate people of diverse cultures, while allowing us all to celebrate our origins, cultures -- even our differences. That is what makes America great. The idea that a nation is strengthened by the diversity of its people, not weakened by it.
Like millions of other immigrants I still see the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of what we need to strive for, despite our fears and prejudices. No matter what's going on around her, she stands there, the welcoming face of democracy. For the people. By the people. Of the people.
In the end I realize this is just my opinion: the truth as I see it. And after 37 years I am still grateful beyond words that I don't have to move to another country to write it. At least for now.
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