Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

CAPE TOWN, Nov 21 -- Perhaps the most completely bizarre moment was standing in the gift shop on Robben Island, flipping through postcards and books on politics and the struggle then bumping, all of a sudden, on a brilliantly blue southern hemisphere morning, into Christo Brand.

Brand, you see, was Nelson Mandela's prison guard from 1978 until the 1990 release, when the man rode those few stormy kilometres across the windy bay to shore and made the unforgettable speech from high atop the balcony of the grand Town Hall in Darling Street. The former jailer now works in operations on the island, managing various aspects of the busy tourist site, out here, out of the shadow of the gorgeously imposing Table Mountain.

This former agent of Apartheid is charming, slight, balding, with the distinctly tough, slightly bronzed skin of an African white man. He chats about his various struggles post-apartheid, and relates stories about his stint in Mandela's Pretoria offices during the presidency, now taken over by Thabo Mbeki, whose task is leading the country out of the romantic morning-after years, and most hopefully towards greater change.

For though Apartheid itself has fallen, a new brand of discrimination fills an unwanted void - suddenly, the country is faced with the reality that freedom is simply not enough. Freedom does not equate equality, we in the United States know this only too well.

Which is precisely why a visit here can be so very disturbing. Constantly, one is humbled by similarities. Class divisions, economic segregation, old attitudes running rampant, destitute who know not how to help themselves. Startling, widespread, random crime.

We are tempted to look down and wag fingers, to say this and that and tsk tsk and reason at how much more advanced we are - because granted, the economic scale slides far further down, down to the miles of shanty towns flung across the nation, now being referred to cheerfully as "informal settlements", which sounds almost cute, but is far from it.

This is Africa, yes - but in a country that often looks more like wealthy California, sedate Westchester County with more blue sky or Las Vegas with different currency, the poverty seems less forgivable. Which is precisely what other developed nations like to bring up when talking to us about our country.

South Africa - bizarre, frightening, wild, lovable, exhilarating - sounds like New York or L.A, don't you think? Strange place -- less than 20% still control a vast majority of resources, one is hard pressed to find a black (majority) radio station signal outside township limits. Police Academy and Who's the Boss are still en vogue on the SABC, and Shampoo seems to run nightly, on the movie channel.

Sweetness and light are not necessarily the order of the day in this new time of freedom - countless embittered souls of all races still face (or ignore, as the case may be) their issues. But that is merely as it should be, in fact it's a wonder that anyone faces anything at all. Perhaps it is due to the regional nature of the US Civil Rights struggle, but as the days here, these sun filled days pass us by, what weighs more and more heavily are the loose ends left after the death of Dr. King, and the subsequent riots. No apologies, no reparation, no hope given - and now, it's too too late, the issue, never all that fashionable as it is here, remains little more than a sore point.

But never mind all that - its all about South Africa. It should be - but in my head, I can't make it so. We've become so dulled by our "fantastic" economy that all of a sudden, things start popping back into my mind, loose ends staring me in the face. Detroit, Chicago's West Side, South Central, East L.A., East New York, informal townships, if you will.

The list goes on.

But besides that, there are the unique wonders of this half-African, half-Western nation, divided, now seeking to change and hopefully heal. Johannesburg, that other mile-high city so brash and money-hungry, attracting opportunists from all over the continent and world, trendy neighborhoods like Melville and Rosebank filled with cafes and bars and crawling with the young and privileged, once trendy neighborhoods like Hillbrow and Yeoville filled with cafes and bars now crawling with the poor and destitute immigrants from Kinshasa, Lagos, desperately violent apartment blocks and gated take-away joints, lines of prostitutes and drug addicts wailing in the street.

The center city is forlorn and forgotten above street level, but the pavement is lively and colorful and dangerous and all but neglected by the municipal government. The business community has fled to white-white Sandton, up on the hill overlooking Alexandra Township with its shacks on the river that flood every rainy season. Up on the hill, it's shop-shop-shop at a host of glittering, soulless malls, there's a bright new convention center, the new Johannesburg Stock Exchange and major corporations that were the lifeblood of Jo'burg under Apartheid.

Where Johannesburg has lost economic ground, the mediterranean-slash-West Coast Cape Town has found hope in the tourism dollar. The center city, once sharply white and still plenty lifeless, has become more integrated but in a more controlled sense. The notorious Cape Flats townships that make up the bulk of the city's populace have gained some ground, offering hope for the future of this naturally stunning little city.

Too many visitors comment on how "small" Cape Town is, but there is, in actuality, a population well past Sydney's, so we are to deduce that the six million blacks on the flats simply don't matter to tourists. It just so happens, that the region is just as much Africa as Jo'burg, with mountains to carve it up, a very effective means of segregation. It appears smaller, until you drive around back, and see the sprawl - white at the immediate base of the mount, townships out on the plains.

One can parade around the now more integrated (and much trumpeted) Waterfront with shops and lux hotels and little boy bars and buskers on the streets, stroll the Bo-Kaap quarter up on the hill, rows of brightly colored Cape Dutch homes on cobbled streets, visit the District Six Museum and talk to former residents who now wait patiently for the return to their former home, that wide swath of open grass and trees that the government now considers how best to proceed with. There are indian townships, coloured townships (really, such a primitive word) black townships, asians, white suburbs, Winelands so annoyingly Dutch and pretentious, beach suburbs, the Cape of Good Hope, shopping to shame the most consumeristic western city, and a take your time vibe that seems in the market to out-do California.

But whatever lie your hotel concierge will sell you, reality prevails - look no further than the airport - heading out on the freeway, smoke rises from endless settlements in once-volatile Crossroads, through the slats one can see, while sitting in Cape Town's blasted traffic, chickens and cows and piles of garbage and small children playing in the shadow of the stark mountains. You wrap around the base, check into one of a handful of world class hotels and dine on prawns and sip Chardonnay amid so much white linen, and rather than being depressed, one is hopeful.

Hopeful, because this is a brand-new country, we are sitting in the lap of a history book still adding chapters, luxuriating in this new democracy, so exciting to observe, tragic setbacks occuring almost daily, but all the same, lurching, screeching forward into a new century, with tears and blood and frustration and hand wringing, God please, towards the light.

Does time heal all wounds? Here, more than any place, one wishes it so.

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com