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Watching the South African 2009 Election Debates

South African Broadcasting Channel 2 has been airing election debates each Sunday evening.  This eighth debate in the series is focusing on the "youth" and so representatives from the youth leagues of each invited party (four total - for some reason the newest party, Congress of the People, which was formed late last year and features major ANC defectors don't have a rep) are speaking to questions posed by three moderators (including one from the Institute for Security Studies).  The four parties present (African National Congress, Inthaka Freedom Party, Democratic Alliance, and Freedom Front Plus) represent an extreme spectrum of interests:  the FFP party, for example, represents Afrikaner separatists who advocate a "separate but equal" South Africa reminiscent of the Apartheid era.  They capitalize on the "diversity"/"multiculturalism" elements of SA's constitution to preserve Afrikaner culture (especially over the issue of the "Englishization" of historically Afrikaans-only tertiary universities).  At the same time, they refuse to accept the elements of the constitution which are designed to right the deeply ingrained inequalities of the country's racist past.  They take particular interest in challenging Black Economic Empowerment policies which are similar to the American concept of "affirmative action."  Their argument in a nutshell:  in 1994 we all became equal, so let's just have formal equality for all now.  I watched a televised rally of theirs earlier yesterday and quite frankly, it scared me (and I was only reading the subtitles).

It's hard to characterize this debate entirely, but a few observations:

• It's nice to see moderators actively challenging what representatives are saying, including pointing out inconsistencies in their statements to past party practices.
• The ANC, as the most dominant party tends to have to field the majority of criticism (and often, understandably so) - taking the most heat in this debate over the past statements of the ANC youth leader Malema.  He has made at least two gaffes since I've been here:  primarily ad hominem attacks that are unproductive and generally baseless.
• My favorite part of the debates isn't listening to the representatives but reading the SMS comments running on the screen below.  They range from critically thoughtful to outright hilarious takes on the parties and their positions.  And, of course, just as I make this observation they have disappeared from the screen before I can transcribe one.

The representatives are making their final statements which is my cue to wrap it up as well.

A low-tech NGO without high-tech?

Technical frustrations abound recently for Create Africa South (CAS), the nongovernmental organization (NGO) I have been working with over the last year.  High technology has never been kind to CAS:  last year during intense rainstorms the roof of the office leaked, destroying one of the two remaining ancient PCs the organization ran there.  Several years ago their entire suite of new PCs were stolen in an armed robbery that, upon J’s description, was likely planned and based on observation of the delivery to the building.  Since that incident, CAS has taken a “no frills” approach to using high tech – in part to maintain a low profile but largely so that it doesn’t become dependent on items that can quickly vanish.

Upon arrival this year I was informed the other office computer finally ceased to function likely due to its age and the humid climate here.  It’s kind of humbling to be handed the electronic life of a decade-old organization on two burned DVDs.  Over this weekend CAS’s final desktop computer (housed at J’s home office) died – a victim of flooding due to this weekends heavy storms.  Over the last week in South Africa three days of heavy rain in different areas has led to the death of at least seven people (in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal provinces) and the displacement of over 200 families – especially in Soweto, one of Johannesburg’s historic townships.  Right now the only functioning high-tech item CAS owns is a digital camera.  R and I have been mediating quite a bit of work and relaying emails for J on our personal laptops because there isn’t much else CAS can do at the moment.

As much as I get frustrated, the situation reminds me of the beauty of low technologies.  Much of the work CAS performs – imparting basic sewing and economic skills and collecting embroidered cloths – is low tech.  In our workshop last year in Mahushu we worked with the women only during the day in a building that lacked electricity.  Besides our digital camera, the rest of our materials consisted of pads of paper, regular and colored pencils with sharpeners, cloth, cotton embroidery thread, sewing needles, scissors, and a few sewn samplers to demonstrate stitches.  Much can come from little.  What are some of the advantages of low technologies?  Generally they can be practiced or crafted with little capital investment and the know-how for the practice can be understood by a single individual (in distinction to trends toward specialization).  But I’m not interested in drawing a sharp distinction or valorizing one over the other ­– rather I'm more interested in how technologies can work together to create opportunities for access and communication.

FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa

This is Zakumi, South Africa's mascot for the FIFA World Cup 2010.  He was unveiled late last year in Johannesburg and "symbolizes South Africa and the rest of the African continent through his self-confidence, pride, hospitality, social skills and warm-heartedness."  "Za" stands for South Africa and "kumi" stands for ten.  I'm not sure why he has green dreads.  FIFA 2010 fever was low-grade last year compared to this year's media coverage, the prevalance of merchandise, and the fact that the first round of tickets went on sale February 19th.

Since I was here last year I have noticed a lot of changes and developments at the Johannesburg airport and in Durban to prepare for the event.  The Jozi airport has already completed secure building access to domestic flights from the international terminal (something that was under construction last year) and they have scared away most of the informal porters who would wait outside to help (and some, swindle) newly arrived international travellers.  I'm anxious to see how South Africa treats the thousands of poor who live in metal shacks near several of the tournament sites.  As Mike Davis and many other critics have pointed out, when the eyes of the world are on a country for an international event (sporting or otherwise), governmental forces usually step in to mask the worst examples of poverty - displacing thousands from informal settlements and demolishing them to construct an "appealing" facade.  The national news mentions concern on progress and completion - particularly of the stadiums - several times a week.  The stadium in Durban (placed north of the main beaches, on the way to ritzier Durban North and Umhlanga) is partially completed but massive in comparison to the Sharks rugby stadium next door - I don't think girders were even up when I was here last year.

462 days away and counting...

Create Africa South is Moving!

When I first wrote Create Africa South in the fall of 2006 about traveling to Durban to research their organization, I was told they were making plans to move their Amazi Abesifazane ("Voices of Women") collection into the Roberts House (a Victorian national monument and one of Durban's oldest-standing houses) to join with the Phansi Museum, which holds an inspiring collection of domestic objects representing Southern African cultures.  When I got here last year and saw the conditions the Amazwi collection were housed in - a skeletal, empty, multi-story building in humid conditions right next to the Indian Ocean, on a street more known for auto-body shops and after-hours prostitution than anything else - I realized their urgency for the move.  It was no place a general public audience would likely travel to view this tremendous collection of thousands of cloths:  a decade-long project that has developed a specific process and product along the way.

This Tuesday, with a bit of gruntwork on my part as well other friends of CAS, we will finally be moving the physical collection into a secure, temperature-controlled, storage room at the Phansi Museum.  The news of this coming through has made the countless meetings (several of which I have been in attendance) and proposals (the most recent I helped complete in mid-February) worthwhile.  Coming at a time like this, when the organization lacks any computer of its own, this news cheers everyone up quite a bit and helps us see a future for the project.

As if Zimbabwe could weather more challenges...

The Zimbabwe elections were held in late March of 2008 and the country only recently reached a power-sharing agreement between the Movement for Democratic Change and Zanu-PF, the political party that has had a stranglehold on the country since independence, led by its dictator, Robert Mugabe.  Only a month after MDC party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, finally took office as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, and less than a week after his first critical speech to Zimbabwe Parliament, Tsvangirai and his wife were involved in a fatal accident yesterday outside of Harere.  Sadly, his wife of 38 years and mother to their 6 children, Susan, was killed while he escaped with minor injuries.

There is much suspicion circulating that the accident may not have been an accident.  At the very least, critics challenge the lack of security Tsvangirai receives in comparison to the motorcades Mugabe travels in when he deigns to leave his estate.  So far, it is known the truck that crashed into them was owned by a United States-based organization that was delivering AIDS-related medicines, but driven by a Zimbabwean contractor.  MDC officials hope an independent investigation can be carried out to determine the driver's background and claims he "fell asleep at the wheel," causing this fatal accident.

Recently Zimbabwe has faced tremendous international pressure, xenophobic violence for Zim refugees in South Africa, and a horrifying cholera epidemic.  President Barack Obama of the United States has decided to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe for at least another year.

Zenzi Dog

While I have been putting in quite a few hours since Friday, it's not all work around here.  J was given this sweet twelve-week old puppy from a family that couldn't take care of her after she grew sick and her front left paw was run over by a car at a traffic light (or "robot" as they are called here) at age eight weeks.  After gaining strength and recovering from the worms she had picked up, Zenzi will have her leg amputated tomorrow.  A specialist said this was the only option, as too much had been crushed in her leg to ever reconstruct functionality again.  Throughout everything she has been through, Zenzi (J named her for the Latin word "to grow" and also because Zenzi means "flea" in Zulu and she was full of them when she arrived!) has a wonderful attitude toward life, her new siblings (J's two giant dogs who lick her to death), and to every person she meets.  She greets you with lots of licks and excitement but soon falls asleep in your lap.  I feel a special kinship to Zenzi because when I was five, a car crushed my front left leg as well.  After surgery, a giant cast, and rehabiliation I recovered perfectly.  I'll keep you updated on Zenzi post-operation.

Long Day

It was a long day for Zenzi, but she made it through her operation.  Provided she has a safe environment for healing (which J will provide), the most dangerous part of the amputation is over:  the anesthesia she received, which many small dogs can't withstand.  The picture above shows her right leg bandaged and she is lying on her amputated leg (the vet said it was odd she preferred to do so, as most dogs avoid lying on their newly amputated side).  She will go home after one or two nights in the vet hospital and soon she will learn how to move easily with three legs.

It was a long day for me as well - three of us (two small ladies and one burly guy) moved the Amazwi Abesifazane cloth archive to the Phansi Museum.  We transported the main bookshelves and storage files for the approximately 2500 recorded cloths.  Unfortunately... while cleaning out the storage room at the Palmer Street offices downtown we made a few confusing discoveries:  unfiled cloths in bags - some that may be over three years old.  With so many relatively temporary employees having a hand at the collection - there is bound to be confusion.  When I return from Cape Town on March 28th (I leave tomorrow morning!), I can't wait to get my hands on the collection and try to make some more sense with its organization.  This will help me understand the collection materially - especially as it has developed over the past decade - before I assist with the next step to transform it into an online, academic archive.

From Durban to Cape Town

I have spent the last four days and three nights in Cape Town and still can't get over the difference between this city to Durban, where I have spent most of my time in South Africa.  The way I tend to understand most places and events, at least initially, is through contrast and analogy; I have been spending much of the last few days thinking about how different these two cities are.  In South Africa people refer to Durban as "slow" and I could never really understand what they meant:  in a city where most people rise at 6am (if not earlier) and work though to 4 or 5pm each day, what is slow about it?  Spending a few nights on the "happening" strip on Long Street in Cape Town, however, I get a sense of what people mean by "slow."  The night life here starts picking up around 9 or 10pm, reaches fever pitch around 1am and continues on to 4am, with the bars, clubs, and streets packed with an international array of residents, tourists, and students.  Most residents seem to be able to pull themselves together for work at 8 or 9am, despite their occasional long evenings.  As much as people go to work in Durban, it is hard to get a quick response or snappy action to business or organizational requests and there is very little to do at night (except a few clubs on Florida Road, restaurants on Davenport, and the occasional opening at the KZNSA gallery). 

But there are even stronger, racialized and ethnic differences between the two cities.  Cape Town sits on the Atlantic Ocean and serves as a metaphoric African gateway to the "West," welcoming Western influences on everything from business practices to cuisine.  At the same time it represents its own distinctive and historic mixture of Malay, Indonesian, Dutch, San, and Khoi traditions (to name a few), creating a very "cosmopolitan" atmosphere.  I have met quite a few Africans from Congo (that is how they have identified DRC to me), Angola, Sudan, and Zimababwe in the few days I have been here.  Unlike in Durban, they seem to have somewhat less concern about "appearing" South African or fearing "xenophobic" attacks that have erupted in the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces (Johannesburg and Durban being the most prominent cities where these attacks have taken place in each province, respectively).  If Cape Town is the metaphoric sub-Saharan African gateway to the "West," then Durban is the gateway to the "near East," with a historically large ethnic Indian population.  Cape Town keeps up with American music and film where Durban keeps up with Bollywood as much as it does Hollywood.

Durban remains a far more "colonial" city than Cape Town:  I don't know that I can express a comprehensive conception of what a "colonial city" is, but one of its most salient features is the separation of racial/ethnic groups and the formal and informal ways that separation continues to be enforced.  I suspect here are many reasons for this - one of the largest being Cape Town (and the Western Cape Province overall) have a large Colured population:  a group whose presence during Apartheid non-verbally challenged the fantasy of "racial incommensurability" that the Nationalist Party attempted to construct.  It wasn't until arriving in Cape Town that I came to realize the valences my whiteness carries in Durban and how many of the negative associations are erased in Cape Town.  This is in large part because Cape Town receives far more international tourism than Durban, so there is no automatic, visual assumption in Cape Town that I am Afrikaans as there is likely to be in Durban.  It's not until I speak in Durban that people know for certain I am from somewhere else (and are usually far more likely to be open and receptive to getting to know me - the United States, particularly with the recent election of Obama, possesses a positive popular perception in South Africa).  So far in Cape Town, I have been mistaken for being Italian a couple of times already, but it seems most people suspend judgment until hearing me speak, and soon figure out I'm from the United States.  In some ways, then, it is easier for me to occupy and move through space in Cape Town's city center.  I wonder how much of this still depends on my appearance, the construction of spaces here (most of the informal settlements lie behind the mountains - out of site from the city, where there are far more within Durban's main city) and the policing of tourist areas.