I have now been out of the country for a little over a month now, a somewhat awkward amount of time to be gone. For a while, I didn’t feel far away yet, nor did I feel settled in South Africa. It was an odd feeling of permanent transit that thankfully has just ended. I now really live here, do my grocery shopping, ride the minibuses, meet up with friends like a normal Capetonian.
I started classes about two weeks ago, which has been a fairly interesting experience. American students are much more inquisitive than South Africans who tend to not speak a whole lot in class unless they are asking a logistical question or making a forceful and often defensive statement about South African national identity or the aftermath of apatheid. There also seems to be much less respect for the authority of the professor in their questions, a combativeness that I think is rarer in American academia. My view is, however, somewhat skewed as I am often called upon to “give the American perspective” or explain the motivations of American economic policy. I completely expected this coming abroad, but often find myself more frustrated by my fellow Americans’ responses than at my questioners’ interrogations.
One classmate’s confident disownment of her fellow citizens’ responsibility for the war rested on the entirely false assertion that the majority of the population opposed the war from the start. I agreed with her that an overwhelming majority now do, but that the lead up to the 2003 invasion saw huge support for the president’s policies. Since her comments, I have made a conscious effort to not channel any defensiveness over American policies into a complete disownment of them. As a student abroad I think it is our job to do what our government refuses to, and accept responsibilities for the failure of our foreign policies.
