Interview of Paula

TOWARDS RAINBOW NATION: IN CONVERSATION WITH PAULA VILJOEN, SOUTH AFRICAN FILM MAKER AND YOGA INSTRUCTOR

Image: Paula

About Paula Viljoen

Paula Viljoen’s journey so far is enriching and exciting. She knows something of everything. Her formal education in Commerce and secretarial practice, a new turn to her career through media studies and advertising, her work experience in Europe, contribution as a lady film producer having a company Antlion Films, contribution to educational resources, her association with B K Iyengar Yoga Institute and running it’s center as a Yoga instructor in Southern Cape Town is a spectacular journey within a very short span of life. Her interest in Ayurveda leads her to start Herb Farming in Rondevlei, Western Cape. It must be an interesting project. She is a combination of strong determination and a discipline. Let me unravel this dynamic multifaceted personality through an interview.  

About the Author

Dr. Sangita Ghodake is an associate professor in English, PDEA’s Baburaoji Gholap College, Sangvi, Pune, affiliated to

 Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. She is a true academician and a sincere researcher.

Hello Paula, Let me begin by complementing you that you are a wonderful human being. I am a foreign student, and a researcher of South African Literature. My M. Phil. and Ph. D. research shares second hand experience of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. I would like to know more about the nation from a permanent resident like you.

Sangita: We condemn unjust laws introduced by apartheid policy. What is your perspective?

Paula: I honestly believe that any injustice leads to marginalization. As human beings very strong feelings are invoked and violent reactions are a response to injustice. An educated person can look at things from a different perspective and perhaps resolve the situation through negotiations.

In South Africa during Apartheid there was a strong censorship policy in place, so ignorance in many cases kept the majority of people deluded.  In this day and age with the Internet and Social Media we all have a voice and can change things that are unjust.  This is the way of the future.  “Education and a sound and uncorrupt justice system”.

Sangita: Would you like to share your personal experience during apartheid regime?

Paula: When I was at University during the late 1970s there were many political/activist students at the University. We had an integrated University but the majority of them were whites.  On one occasion I noticed the CID (SECURITY POLICE) harassing a fellow student for no apparent reason.  This was unjust and I tried to assist my fellow student.  I was pushed out of the way and he was arrested or what they called in those days ‘detained’.  I was unable to find out where he was being held and a few days later he was released, rather battered and bruised.  From that day onwards, wherever I went I had a shadow, all my letters were opened and lewd phone calls  were received at all times of the day and night.  To me we all have a voice and wherever possible we need to speak out and not just look the other way.

Sangita: Turning to present day status of the nation as a ‘Rainbow Nation’, tell us about social fabric of the society.

Paula: South Africa under the apartheid government had certain categories for races in South Africa. Black – majority, Coloured, Chinese, Indian, White and Honoroury White, Japanese and so on.  In the New South Africa there is not colour segregation but 11 different vernacular languages. From the majority down to the minority.  Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Sotho sa Leboa, Tswana, Sotho, Swati, Venda, Ndebele ,Tsonga.  In different provinces they become the majority language.  All languages have a place in the diverse culture of South Africa. Due to the painful pass-laws of the past government I would not like to classify myself as any race but as ‘English Speaking South African’.

Sangita: You have mentioned diverse culture of South Africa. India and South Africa are known for ‘Unity in Diversity’. What is your opinion?

I think that this is a forward thinking constitution as we cannot separate the nation into different cultures.  South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation because the democracy gives a voice to all the South Africans, and this multicultural diversity adds to the tapestry of the nation.  Where there is a place, no matter how small for all.

Sangita: The fathers of both the Nations fought against British imperialism and brought the dawn of spring of hope. Nelson Mandela often quoted that India gave Mohandas Gandhi to South Africa and South Africa returned Mahatma Gandhi to India. What would you like to say about them?

Paula: Both these men were for a peaceful solution to the colonial regimes into which they were born. Both were highly educated men, observing their people and lack of education.  In their policies of peaceful protest they out-staged the dreadful colonial attitudes. When Mahatma Ghandi visited South Africa during the apartheid regime he was treated as a 2^nd class citizen. As an educated man he wrote about this indiscretion and had to flee the country due to his outspoken attitude. He then went back to India in order to “free” his own people, sacrificing his own personal comfort, rallying against the minority and finally succeeded.  Likewise Nelson Mandela from his confined exile on Robben Island, led a peaceful protest, rallying the entire world to boycott South Africa in order to abolish the Apartheid system. Both stand for ‘simple living and high thinking’.

Sangita: South African History would be incomplete without the acknowledgement of Nelson Mandela. How would you describe him as an activist and a social reformer?

Paula: It will be very difficult for us to forget Nelson Mandela as a country, he stood up for human rights and in his way never moved away from that path, until his dying day he was dealing with the world’s problems and advising peaceful negotiations. As a grandfather he could have sat out his old age with his wife Graca Michel but he continued to bring the truth to humankind. So in essence his legacy is global and if we took a lesson from him, do not judge others, they were ignorant in that moment, forgive and forget. In South Africa we have a saying ‘Sumunye’, meaning ‘we are one’.

Sangita:  Let me turn to your interest in knowing Viljoen ancestry. Tell us something about your roots.

Paula: I often wonder if there was a way of tracing all humans back to the beginning of time, whether we would be of the same genes. In Venda South Africa there is a Zionist group claiming that they were the 12^th tribe of Israel, genetically there was a test done and their DNA is the same as the Israeli Zionists, although they look completely different. So humans are fundamentally the same and if we could all work towards an inner sanctity we would not have to look at our Ancestry to find our Roots. But as a subject and as a wonderful storyline we can weave the tapestry of our ancestors. This is what fascinates me.

Sangita: Do you read creative literature? What types of books do you read?

Paula: I live to read , or read to live , belonging to a wonderful book-club, diverse in its readership and get to read things that I would never have thought of reading. My choice would be novels on historic events and human psychology. Fact or fiction books are such an important part of education. There has recently been a dabate in South African Academia regarding what novels or literature should be used in higher education. Most stated that African writers should be set works for African universities and not Old Colonial passé authors that no longer have any significance to any higher learning.

Sangita: I am a huge fan of Nobel Laureates Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee. I like Zakes Mda’s autobiography too. What are your impressions?

Paula: As Nadine Gordimer said once “nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.” I think that in all three cases they are brilliant at portraying the psyche of human beings and their storytelling abilities draw you into the characters, some rather normal, others more perverse but all the same the question of how diverse we are as humans and that so much of our suffering comes from the mind. Zakes Mda has recently refuted the idea that Nelson Mandela was the savior of the nation, I love the debate it opens up because one cannot place any human being in that position as we then lose our own identity and are not able to make our own decisions, blaming the other for anything that goes wrong. Always food for thought, but all three has spoken their minds, their own truths.

Sangita: Let us turn to your films production house. Would you like to promote media studies in Humanities?

Paula: Film Production has changed drastically since I was in the media game. With Social Media and access to information on a global scale, there are endless opportunities for students to succeed. As long as there is freedom of speech and non censorship there is no end to the truth that is to be told. In the past we were beholden to the often biased opinions of the Editor or censorship board. Nowadays the media are put under the sword if they over exaggerate stories or sensationalize a story in order to get viewership. Keep telling the stories this will be what I would advise the students.

Yes. I would promote media studies in academics. We are living in the era of information technology. Virtual classrooms are introduced in advanced universities. Media and Film studies can be prominent attraction of today’s youth.

Sangita: Yoga and Ayurveda have been practiced in India from time immemorial.  We are happy to see that the foreigners like you are devoting their lives for the spread of it. How did you inter into it?

Paula: Many years working not stop in the Film Industry, took its toll on my mental and physical being. I decided to move to that little farm in the country that we all threaten to retire to in times of stress. Well I made the decision to change my life as it seem rather empty spiritually. I moved to the farm and planted herbs, medicinal plants and found a Yoga teacher. The seed was planted after my first Savasana (corpse pose), my mind and body felt so renewed afterwards that I was hooked into the endless journey of the science of yoga.

Sangita: We would love to know about your philosophy of Yoga, Global approach to it, and its practice on the international level.

Paula: The Philosophy of yoga is a vast subject dating back 5000 years. Patanjali considered as the father of yoga wrote three books on Grammar, Ayurveda, Yoga. Within the yoga scripts taken from many different Vedas he brought us the yoga of today. Firstly we need to look at our Moral Discipline, and individual observances, Yama and Niyama. Taking the eight limbs of yoga as an all encompassing science we will find the universal peace that Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela believed in so strongly. Yoga means to Yoke or to join. “To join our soul with the Universal soul”.  Internationally this is growing as the inner awareness is being emphasized and that all humans are in essence the same, and the peace it brings in the stressful first world.

Sangita: Since you have invited us to watch wild life of Africa I would like to know about it.

Paula: I would say something about preserving wild life. Again it comes down to diversity. We live on a planet that encompasses an environment that is a fine balance. Due to over population, ignorance and greed we as humans have the capacity to preserve this fine balance. Until every human being realizes this we have to continue to create awareness on Social Media, silent and non violent protest. We put people on Mars why we cannot find a way for every living thing to live in harmony is sometimes beyond me.

Sangita: Coming back from wild life to your passion of herb farming, what kinds of herbs do you grow on your farm?

Paula: In South Africa we have a huge water problem. We either have too much at a time or too little. Where we live there is a shortage of water and all the water on the farm is collect in rain tanks from the roof. In this way not much water is spare to grow many vegetables, as they are water hungry. Herbs are however very resilient, many coming from the warm winter rainfall areas of the Med. Indigenous herbs also have a high survival rate in the dry times. We grow medicinal herbs, mainly indigenous and herbs for manufacture in Pesto. It is a smallholding but sustains us as our needs are very few. To supplement the income, we grow seedlings, teach yoga and do healing work.  Any excess food we trade with our neighbours for something that they have so in some ways moving away from currency using seed currency is the way of the future.

Sangita: What are the issues and challenges of higher education in South Africa?

Paula: I believe that education should be free to all. This is not the case in South Africa and higher education is extremely expensive. Also the education in primary and secondary education is very poor so that the standards in South African Universities are very low. In the past the Universities were on a par with many International Universities, but nowadays there are too many bought Certificates in a rather corrupt system. We have to provoke new social imagination. Our culture of Narcissism is evident in the culture of consumer, corporate driven capitalism. We are deprived of being socially accountable. 

Sangita: Can collaboratios and MOUs are the need of the hour?

Paula: Absolutely vital for global equanimity, understanding each other and education about other cultures can bring about global tolerance. It should be encouraged on every level.

Sangita: What is your life philosophy? What message would you like to give to the youth?

Paula: If we take care of your bodies and nurture our souls, harming none we can harmonize with the earth and all its intracasies. Take time to do yoga and meditation each day, work hard and contribute to society, giving back what you have received.  My Guru BKS Iyengar said “The body is like the cloth to the soul.  It is our duty to take care of it”.

 Let me conclude with formal vote of thanks. Paula is continuously working and updating herself in her field. She is an earnest spiritualist, yoga practitioner and a passionate lover of nature. She influences others in positive way. We are proud of you. I wish you all the very best for your future endeavors.