More than 35 years ago I visited South Africa for the first time. This was the heyday of apartheid. 35 years ago is in the beginning of the eighties, a time when the government stepped up the forced removals of particularly black South Africans to their so called “homelands”. This was a time when all the Nordic countries followed developments with keen interest, and this was also why I went there to report. But not only the black population was affected, everyone was. Apartheid was a system that left no one and nothing alone. Everyone suffered, some quite physically, others phsycologically. It was an inhumane and horrible system.
But I also remembered the beauty of the country, particularly the beauty of the Western Cape and Cape Town. And I felt I wanted to see it again, and get an idea of where the country is now, more than 30 years after Nelson Mandela was let out of prison and apartheid was abolished.
It is a beautiful country. And it has a fascinating and very rich floral kingdom, all of its own. It is one of the world’s most diverse and abundant floral areas, home to about one-fifth of the vegetation in all of Africa.
Says Wikipedia: The Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, is an area of extraordinarily high diversity and endemism, and is home to over 9,000 vascular plant species, of which 69 percent are endemic. Much of this diversity is associated with the fynbos biome, a Mediterranean-type, fire-prone shrubland.
And has it changed?
Yes, absolutely, the country has changed. But it also hasn’t. It is still a violent country, it is a country where segregation is gone from law, but where segregation still lives on in everyday life, where black and white and coloured and indian and all the rest spend a sunny Saturday on the same beach, but shanty towns are all over and everyone with money guards his house vigorously. 
Electric wires, barbed wires and ads from companies providing sercurity and “armed response” are everywhere. To me this signals “I do not trust you” – a message totally contrary to the aims of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
And guess where this picture is from:
Quite right. It is from Robben Island.
There is still a long way to go. But for the sake of a beautiful and also rich country, full of possibilities, and with so many wonderful, kind and helpful people, I truly wish all will go well.
O S M A F Frankenhaeuser 