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Say What?!
Camden Town, London, UK – May 2005 – Patrick Nouhailler ©
I had a colorful tee-shirt that I had purchased in Camden market in London, it had bold blue and bright red and vibrant green. The acronym S.W.A.P.O was blazoned across the colors. I knew that it stood for South West Africa Peace Organization, when I purchased the shirt Apartheid was still in existence. I was back home in New York City walking down Park Avenue South when a business man stopped me with his hand and he called me a stupid bitch. I was so shocked that I told him to leave me alone and that I can wear what I want and tore my arm away. I was shaken by the vehemence of the whole encounter.
laurieanichols 
SWAPO were considered a terrorist organisation by white South Africans. It would be like you wearing an Al Quaida tshirt today.
Incidentally, P is for ‘People’s’, not ‘Peace’.
The man was wrong to behave that way.
To think that Apartheid now seems like a century ago, at least it does here in the U.S. I liked the colors on the tee-shirt and when I took a class on South Africa my freshman year at college, I know that we discussed South West Africa a bit but we didn’t get into the terrorist aspects of SWAPO, so I wasn’t trying to make a statement politically, I liked the colors. That was me in my youth, memories.