Événement

South Africa -- Beauty With a Troubled Past -- Prof. John McKinstry

Monday, April 8, 2019 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

French Hospital Copeland Health Educational Pavillion

$5 for LLCC members, $10 for non-members

The southernmost 500 miles of the African continent offers dramatic landscapes, exotic wildlife, and various peoples with bitter histories of not getting along. Tidal waves of indigenous tribal strife, European imperial conquest, economic exploitation, and state-sponsored brutality have swept over South Africa since at least the 17th century. And yet, since the fall of formal apartheid in the 1990's there has been a deliberate effort to put aside past fears and grudges in order to build a multi-racial, multicultural, harmonious "rainbow society" founded on truth and reconciliation.

Highlights of this course will include:

-- Hundreds of years ago the original population suffered invasion by two waves of Europeans in succession, the Dutch and the English.

-- The invaders fought the natives and then fought between themselves for decades.

-- The British granted independence to what became the Republic of South Africa in 1912.

-- Remnants of the Dutch plus other Europeans who remained after the British left developed an extremely brutal system of racially based oppression against the native population.

-- Finally the majority native population gained control of the government and then a surprise and ray of hope for all diverse societies occurred.

Sounds complicated? This course will try to clarify South Africa's pasts and explore its possible futures.

John McKinstry was Professor of sociology and Asian studies Cal Poly 1968-2014. He has been a recipient of three Fulbright teaching awards to Japan, China and Bulgaria. He is author and co-author of several books about Asian societies.

If you would like to have the password for the member price for this course, go to www.lifelearnerscc.org for information on how you can become a member.