(d)urban(a)

What does Democracy mean to you?

I have willfully avoided describing my first day at Create South Africa (CAS) because it simply overwhelmed me.  I'll try later today to put a narrative into text since I'm spending much of the day reading outside in the shade or in my room in Glenwood (a relatively quiet, suburban enclave in the city).  For now, I want to discuss one project M (whom I will work most closely with at CAS) introduced me to on Friday and the particular question it poses to its participants.

CAS has recently partnered with the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa's Parliamentary Millennium Project, "Perspectives On and Of Africa."  The PMP supports CAS to conduct quilt workshops with groups of women (living in both urban and rural areas) in each of the nine provinces of the country.  M had just completed her first workshop in December with a group of about thirty women from the Eastern Cape province and the next workshop is scheduled for March right here within the KwaZulu-Natal province.  At the beginning of the week the women are asked, "What Does Democracy Mean to You?" and by the week's end each woman has narrated (orally for those participants who are illiterate) a response to the question and accompanied it with a sewn quilt panel using mixed media of cloth, thread, and beads.  Translators working for the PMP assist in the translation of the narratives from their original language (which, depending on the area, is usually in any one of ten official African languages or possibly in Afrikaans) into English.  Eventually these quilt panels will be framed with the narratives (both forms) and a photograph of the panel's creator for display at the Parliament in Cape Town.

On Friday M and I pored over the English translations the PMP had sent along to edit them further (making small changes in grammar, syntax, and sometimes diction).  M speaks seven of South Africa's official languages fluently to my one, but I suppose my background in composition instruction came somewhat in handy (I never imagined I would be so grateful for the time I spent, both as a student and an instructor, enmeshed in the brambly rules of English grammar offered by Diane Hacker and her kind). The overwhelming majority of responses cited the following four components of democracy:
potable water
electricity
paved roads
close access to health clinics
I will be entirely honest to say that my particular background unprepared me for responses that were so immediate and concrete.  What I wonder is, what is the difference of conceiving of democracy as equality of access to an essential bundle of material, social goods and conceiving of democracy through other abstractions such as equality before the law, rule of law, or human rights?  Additionally, how have universal or global conceptions of democracy been put to use compared to site-specific or local understandings of democracy?

The question of how to conceive of democracy remains an important and highly contested one here in South Africa, particularly as the years from 1994 when South Africa formally achieved complete enfranchisement of the population elapse.  The practical and widespread implementation of this formal achievement has been criticized on many fronts (nationally and globally).  For example, last Tuesday (29 Jan 2008) John Minto, a New Zealand anti-apartheid activist who organized the 1981 Halt All Racist Tours, rejected a nomination for the Companion of OR Tambo Award (a prestigious award whose past posthumous recipients include Ghandi and MLK Jr).  In his rejection letter to South Africa president Thabo Mkebi, Minto insisted, "when we protested and marched into police batons and barbed wire here in the struggle against apartheid, we were not fighting for a small black elite to become millionaires.  We were fighting for a better South Africa for all its citizens."

Create South Africa

Although I wrote earlier about Create South Africa's quilt project with the South Africa Parliamentary Millennium Project, I finally feel more prepared to write about my involvement with them so far.  In November of 2006 while writing a review essay on "material rhetoric," I included a catalog from the exhibition "Weavings of War:  Fabrics of Memory" in my consideration of "material" engagements with the public sphere.  In that essay I argued that a rhetoric of material insists textiles and clothing possess materialized agency, like Alfred Gell's notion of a secondary agent in Art and Agency or the notion of an actant in actor-network-theory.  In positing a rhetoric of material, we can challenge the Western depth ontology that devalues surface and expand the possibility of what may count as rhetorical engagement, as well as the types of cultures and actors who can produce rhetoric.

Part of the "Weavings of War" exhibition included the "memory cloths" created through one of Create South Africa's workshops.  These embroidered quilt panels disrupt expectations for craft work - they negotiate between invention and commonplaces within embroidery and quilt practice.

This panel, created by Pamela Grootboom in the Western Cape in December 2007, illustrates what I mean.  In the lower part of the panel, Pamela depicts two young people on the street exchanging drugs for money.  Above them she illustrates two young people making soup as part of a soup kitchen that Grootboom started in her township.  Both show relationships between people, the former damaging to the township community near Cape Town where Pamela lives and the latter benefiting the community and giving its young residents a safe place to go to help provide meals for themselves and others.  Most of us don't expect textiles or embroidery to approach subjects like drug use and the creation of soup kitchens and for that reason, these cloths arrest our attention more than merely reading a written account of the drug and poverty problem in Cape Town's informal settlements (or in economically depressed areas anywhere).  Besides, many of the participants in the program don't have the facility in writing English to be able to reach audiences outside of their townships anyway.

Reading about the project and seeing a few digital image reproductions of the cloths, however, was not enough for me to get a sense of how the project operates on a daily basis.  My curiosity about this particular nongovernmental organization (NGO) was embedded within a broader interest in handicraft NGOs operating within the "global South."  My previous experience with such an NGO was volunteering for the local 10,000 Villages fair-trade shop in Champaign, Illinois, but that was a comfortable retail shop with several new computer stations to assist management and volunteers in product information and location.  I think that was why I was so surprised when I went to the Create South Africa offices for the first time last Friday - there was such a difference.  The CAS office is located on Palmer Street - basically an alley that mostly houses auto body repair shops - in Durban's relatively crime-ridden downtown area.  The commercial building that houses the cloth archive is bare and the organization uses two PCs and a copy machine that are all nearly a decade old.  During the summertime, the office can grow warm, even with the circulating fan and the breeze coming in from the large window that lights the space, especially on a day like yesterday when M and I spent some time ironing and steaming the cloths before photographing them.  After the first few days I guess what I came to realize is that no matter how small or seemingly insignificant an infrastructure (economically and technologically speaking) - productive work (rhetorical and otherwise) can still happen.  I look forward to writing more about the work that happens during a week-long workshop when the cloths are made and I will have the opportunity to participate (assisting in embroidery and sewing instruction) during the next one in March here in KwaZulu-Natal.

Representations of the United States in South Africa

I have had a lot of friends ask me how South Africans and the South African media here conceive of the United States.  I can only speak of what I have picked up so far from observing popular culture sources (through television, newspaper, and a couple of shopping malls) and a few scattered conversations.  One of the first icons that greeted me when I arrived in Durban was a Native American Chief.  Coming most recently from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where the school has only just (after years of activism) "retired"  Chief Illiniwek as the school's mascot, seeing a giant chief plastered on trash bins throughout the city was pretty absurd.  Spur is a large chain of restaurants  in South Africa - visiting their website is certainly an experience one does not soon forget.  Their theme song greets you with, "take me to the canyon, where the secret tribe plays, I'm hungry for adventure, I've got a taste for life today," as images of a multicultural "tribe" of "Indians" flashes before you.  I've photographed the exteriors of two so far - "Mustang Spur" and "Kansas Spur."  Although I have yet to dine at a Spurs and may never have the pleasure to "saddle up" at one of these "steak ranches", even from standing outside, you can tell the booths are  upholstered with cow print.    Granted, this is one of the more outrageous popular representations of the US, but while on the bus today I spoke to G, a man about my age who was telling me about a friend who moved to Ohio to teach rugby and be with his American girlfriend.  G told me that his friend was concerned with meeting his girlfriend's father, as he was "coloured" (a specific racial category here in South Africa since Apartheid) and his girlfriend was white.  G said he imagined the woman's father looming large on a "Texas-sized" ranch and brandishing a shotgun at his friend.  Although he was joking somewhat in telling the story, it still speaks to how globally pervasive the American "wild west" trope seems to be.  But this is just one of the many representations of the US here.  So far coverage on the news has been limited to two subjects - the presidential primaries and entertainment news (apparently Britney Spears' latest dramas even rate here).  The television programming relies heavily on American productions, in particular US "soapies" (Days of Our Lives, Passions, All My Children), several sitcoms and talk shows (Oprah is very popular here), and a lot of [bad] American movies (Barbed Wire, The Animal, should I go on?).  What I have appreciated in conversation, especially the many I have had with M at the Create South Africa office, is that mostly people have questions about the US - they ask questions about the issues that are pressing here:  particularly employment opportunity, race relations, HIV/AIDS, and drug use. I know I have asked so many questions about the culture here too.  I have valued the open conversations I have been able to have so far, whether it's with M, a taxi driver, or the family who lives in the CAS offices to watch the building at night whose three-year-old son wants to go to America.

Fortress S.A.

The title for this post is in reference  to a chapter in Mike Davis' book on Los Angeles, City of Quartz (1990), a chapter that opened my eyes to the construction of spaces that structure, order, and un-welcome the movement of specific types  of bodies in the city I spent a decade of my life.  In his more recent  book, Planet of Slums (2006), Davis returns again to considerations of the construction of urban space with a focus on the rapidly increasing slum urbanization of the "Third World."  He argues that "architectures of fear" (a phrase he credits to Tunde Agbola) reach their extremes "in large urban societies with the greatest socio-economic inequalities:  South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States" (116).

In my walks and bus-rides around Durban it is hard not to notice the high gates, razor wire, electric fences, and omnipresence of private security signs and guards.  While Apartheid uprooted communities of color from South Africa's cities after WWII to perfect an "ideal of 'white cities, black homelands'" (Davis 52), the repeal of the Pass Laws and Group Areas Act (in 1986 and 1991, respectively) facilitated an influx of urban migration by groups who had previously not been allowed to reside and, in some cases, work in the city.  In terms of development, the large South African cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban shifted from existing as entire units of "secure" space (where secure = non-Black and non- Coloured) to the development of atomized, "secure" spaces of the individual home, business, or luxury apartment building.  The fecund flora is bisected by razor wire and electric wire nearly everywhere in an effort to restrict the movements of bodies within these cities.

I have to implicate myself within this fortressed city - I write now behind a spiked and razor-wired fence and notice the "panic button" and metal bars on my doorway each time I leave my apartment.  The amount of security always suggests potential threat but never seems to connect back to the underlying problems that have contributed to this construction of threat (the inequities in this society and particularly the dearth of formal employment that can provide a living wage).  This past Friday, I spent the evening at a friend's house for dinner and conversation with several wonderful women who work in Durban in the arts, with NGOs, or as lecturers at local universities.  By the end of the night, I was giddy from the thoughtful conversation and wine that had both been plentiful throughout the evening.  My excitement soon evaporated during the ride home when we drove past a man, dressed in a military-esque uniform and clutching a handgun, asleep in a ragged chair along the side of the road.  The sight of this man and the barbed wire everywhere punctured the mostly idealistic conversation from earlier.  A few minutes later, I locked myself into my barred apartment and thought of the man sleeping in the chair a few blocks away, allowing the architecture of fear to enclose me.

Southern Africa, 1842: Clothing and Commerce... thanks to the Gospel

This image has been reproduced from an 1885 publication of the Scottish Geographical Magazine that illustrates the "British Possessions" of South Africa.  Writing about his "missionary labours" in Southern Africa a little over forty years before, R. Moffatt describes the clothes-making lessons his wife gave to the indigenous Africans.  He established the Kuruman Mission at Maruping (later moved to Seodin) in what would now be considered Botswana (in the area of the map labeled "British Protectorate").  Moffatt unabashedly connects these clothes-making lessons to the creation of new consumers for British textiles:

"It was somewhat entertaining to witness the various applications made to Mrs Moffatt, who was the only European female on the station, for assistance in the fabrication of dress, nor were these confined to female applicants.  As it was seen that these matters were left to her, they thought that she must needs be mistress of all civilized life, and consequently capable of instructing men as well as women.  One would bring prepared skins to get them cut into dresses, another wanted a jacket, and a third would be desirous of a pattern, while another would bring his garment sewed upside down, and ask why it would not fit.  These efforts, however trifling they may appear, were the precursors of a mighty change, and the elements of a system which was destined to sweep away the filth and customs of former generations, and to open up numberless channels for British commerce, which but for the Gospel might have remained for ever closed." (emphasis added)

From:  Moffatt, R.  Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa.  1842.  Pg. 335.

Another Day of Extremes in Durban

Today was much different than yesterday (which I spent primarily dealing with the robbery - where dealing = sewing because I was too nervous to focus on anything else).  I can't wait to upload some of the photographs I took today and I hope to be consistently online again by the end of this week to do so.

This morning J and M (the women from CAS I work with) picked me up and we drove around north of the city from about 11am to 4pm.  First we went to Kwa Mashu - this was the first township I have seen since I have been here and it was such a range of extremes - the settlements there are labeled by letters.  The "N" section houses professionals (nurses, teachers, etc.) from the area and the houses were relatively nice (completed houses with four rooms, a gate, and electricity/water/plumbing) compared to other sections - in particular the "K" section.  This section consists mostly of what are called "informal settlements" by the government but what most people would realistically call metal shacks.  The standard of living here is so low and so hard for people that they have to steal electricity because Eskom (even though it's government-owned) has not installed safe electrical access in their area.  During times of heavy rain (such as we had last week for a few days) people can be electrocuted and fires can start because the electricity hasn't been grounded safely.  There is no running water here for each shack and there is often only one drop toilet for every 100 people.  Also during the rains the waste can be washed into the streets, enter nearby water sources, and devastate the health of those living in the area.   

In the center of Kwa Mashu, however, there is a community center that was opened in March 2004 that is a beautiful space that gathers community members together for performances of many kinds.  They have a recording studio and have produced albums, there is a men's dramatic performance group (the men were all previously in jail and have now committed themselves to community outreach) - there are so many amazing programs the Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Project has sponsored since opening its doors.  There I met Z, who does amazing video editing work (seriously - I was envious when I saw his awesome Mac studio complete with Final Cut Pro... especially with me being Mac-less for now) and he gave me a copy of a great short documentary that was made about two residents of Kwa Mashu.  I told him about Writing With Video, the course I have taught at UIUC and we might cook up some sort of video collaboration in the future involving my class (if/when I get to teach it again) and the community center- as I've placed a lot of emphasis on video production that focuses on local situations and how they connect to global issues.

After that we stopped at a casino in the area to have a laugh really.  It has been decorated to simulate a traditional Zulu village and it was really something.  The interior simulated a night sky (like the Paris casino in Las Vegas) and there were statues of Zulu warriors and animals everywhere.  As far as I could tell there were only slot machines rather than table gambling, but we spent most of our time outside to enjoy the views it offers guests of the coast of Durban - you could see Umlangi in the distance and also downtown Durban.  The Indian Ocean was so deeply blue.

Next J insisted we drive out to Tongaat to see a very special Hindu temple there, the Sri Jagannath Puri Temple.  Tongaat houses the Hulett sugar company (on the drive up there I could see fields of sugar cane - a new sight for me!), which has quite a history in the area.  Many Indians remain in Tongaat, as it was settled originally by Indian indentured laborers working for the sugar plantations.  I will write more about the Temple and its history later when I can include pictures.  Oh but we had a wonderful visit with Mr. Kamal, whose grandfather built the temple in 1900 - at a time when hardly anyone but Whites were allowed to own land.  But I should bite my tongue (typing hand?) for now, as I want to write about the visit and our conversation in detail later.

I'm home for the evening and will probably return to my sewing (and watching this horribly wonderful Afrikaans "soapie" they play on TV called "7 de laan" - at first I thought that I was watching it for "linguistic research purposes" but as soon as San Mari collaped from anabolic steroid use because her new boyfriend Conrad was administering them to her in secret so she would win a biatholon... I realized maybe I was getting hooked on ummm the "universal human stories" the program explores!). 

My thanks to everyone here and in the States who reached out to me and helped me deal with the robbery yesterday.  I know I wouldn't be feeling as safe and as better as I do now if it hadn't been for those who contacted me with their thoughtful messages, help, and conversation.  My friends make me feel so happy.

Pictures of Kwa Mashu Township

Sri Jagannath Puri Temple in Tongaat

On Wednesday I spoke with Mr. Kamal Maharaj, the Editor of the Vishwa Shakti (a local free Hindu newspaper) and the caretaker of the Temple.  It was built by his grandfather in 1900, at a time when it was nearly impossible for anyone but Whites to be granted ownership of land.  The temple is in a residential area in Tongaat, a small city that that wasn't officially established until 1945, but has been a sugarcane growing town for much longer than that.

A courtyard surrounded the temple with beautiful plants and trees that cooled the area down.  The temple's physical design was created based on only one other temple Kamal's grandfather had seen in India, prior to leaving for South Africa to work as an indentured laborer of sugarcane.  Jagannath comes from Sanskirt, meaning "Lord of the Universe," which is one of several names to refer to Krishna, the deity for whom the temple is dedicated.

Even in the hot bright summer, the small space inside the temple remains cool and dark.  I was taken especially by the way sound carried inside of it - during our conversation, the words seemed to echo in gentle whispers that carried up the length of the temple.  I did not ask to take pictures inside, in part because I did not feel it was appropriate, but also because I got quite caught up in conversation.  The main representation of Krishna had been created in Tongaat and was about seven feet in height above the platform it stood upon.  Covered in a handplated, silver material (perhaps a silver composite), the face of Jagannatha was incomplete to communicate the Hindu concept that, as Kamal put it,  "the physical can only take one so far" before one recognizes the importance of the spiritual that transcends corporeality. 

It is hard for me to recount our entire conversation, but after speaking about the history of the temple, we spoke about its role in his community today.  Besides publishing the Vishwa Shakti, Kamal organizes youth groups in the area and youth leadership camps that travel to the Drakensberg mountains.  I told him I had heard comments since I had arrived to Durban about the "materialism" of the youth, particularly those too young to remember conditions under Apartheid.  His response was considerate - instead of distancing himself or his conception of faith from the younger people within the greater community, he situated their position within the context of change.  To be more specific, he acknowledged that each generation may have new considerations and decisions to make about their particular social and political situation, and that the Temple's community exists to help those interested to develop and think through ways of handling these specific challenges or situations.  In the article "What Identity Crisis?" in the most recent edition of Vishwa Shakti, he writes, "Identity is not a static idea.  The frame of reference keeps on changing.  The fluidity that we experience in daily living shapes and molds our identity in a constant way.  [...] all of us exist and operate on many identities.  The circumstances act as a stimulus that foregrounds a particular identity."

Zamukuziphilisa Community Centre, Umbilo Temple, and Several New Projects For Me

This morning J, M, and I drove to an interior design firm to pick up a couple hundred fabric sample books the firm donated to CAS.  The sample books range in size and contain about twenty to thirty squares of high-quality, upholstery and decorator fabric in each one.  From Durban, we drove south to the Umlazi Township - the second-largest township in South Africa with a population of about 750,000 people in the area.  Decent living conditions and health care for many residents remains a challenge, although the area has had recent construction of more primary and secondary schools.

When we arrived there we dropped the fabric off at the Zamukuziphilisa Community Centre, a "self-help" sewing and beading center for women in the area.  I met the director of the center, Mrs. Gambushe, and we spoke about marketable sewing items we could make from the fabric in the books.  I will return to the center next Tuesday with M and we'll work with interested women on sewing things with the fabric.  Certainly we could make throw pillows or quilted blankets from the cloth, but if anyone else has any additional ideas, I welcome suggestions.  In the past I used fabric from sample books to make a lined, patchwork skirt as part of a larger collection I created for a fashion show I organized for a charity event held at Fais Do Do in Los Angeles (this was in 1999 when I was still in fashion school at LA Trade Tech - I can't believe it has almost been a decade!).  I plan to check some crafting sites online (like craftster.org) for additional ideas on things one can make out of smaller pieces of cloth.  In the sewing room at the center they have three industrial machines (Singers), one industrial overlock, about fifteen home sewing machines, and two home overlocks (or what the home sewing industry calls sergers).  I can't wait to get back to sewing on an industrial machine!  I will post pictures of the sewing room after I return next Tuesday.

Later in the afternoon, J and I visited the Umbilo Temple, which is in Mayville, a suburb close to where I am staying in Glenwood.  It is hard for me to use the word "suburb" to describe Mayville because the connotations I associate with that word evoke mental images of white picket fences and comfortable, family houses.  Mayville contains a large informal settlement with shack houses that cover the hillside and few water pumps and toilet areas that the residents are forced to share.  At the end of January, a local newspaper published the horrible news of a baby in Mayville who died from a rat bite he received in his shack.  Further down Bellair Road from these shacks, the third iteration of Umbilo Temple stands, nestled amongst green trees in the hillside.  The first Umbilo Temple was established in 1875 and was the first Hindu Temple in Africa.  Because of the expansion of Bellair Road, the national government under Apartheid forced the temple's move.  The first temple is submerged by dirt underneath the freeway because the road construction workers could not break the stone of the temple.  The temple's style and decoration represents traditions of temple styles found in Southern India, with the exception of a smaller shrine influenced by Northern Indian style.  The temple complex consists of a large courtyard area filled with trees, marigold bushes, and one smaller temple next to the central one.  I have included a picture of the smaller temple, which is the "Mother's Temple" and its purpose is to honor women.  The other picture comes from within an area of the larger temple - these deities represent the planets in our solar system, with the Sun in the center. 
We visited with the caretaker of the temple who explained its purpose and meaning for the community and invited us back to the Fire Walking Festival on March 30th (which I'm looking forward to).  After we told him about CAS he also told us to return Saturday morning to collect some cloth that has been donated to the temple that he would like to reach women sewers affiliated with CAS.  Also, by chance, we met his colleague E who leads a senior citizen's group for Indians in the area - he invited us to speak to the group (he said it is mostly women) at their community center on March 5th about CAS's cloth production projects.  M and I will attend and show them examples of the cloths women have made and talk about how they construct personal histories of South Africa.  After our presentation we will invite anyone interested in making a memory cloth and arrange a time for a workshop.  J said she will look into funding for this, as their convention is to give each person who produces a cloth a token of R120.  If members of the group are interested in participating, this would mean the first cloths that CAS will collect to represent the Indian perspective of South African history!  Especially since this group is older, many may remember or want to recount their experience under Apartheid, including past forced relocations and the riots and police violence that occurred along Bellair Road where the Temple is located.

The apprehensions I had yesterday about my involvement with CAS and my lack of a "critical distance" (something I've never particularly cultivated anyway) went out the window for me today.  I came here with a background in sewing/garment production and writing and I'd just as soon apply it.  So while I'm completing my dissertation prospectus and collecting research (using the CAS and Univ. of KZN archives and eventually conducting formal interviews), I've also committed myself to work on the following projects:

• Parliament Millennium Programme/Amaswi Abesifazane "What Does Democracy Mean to Me?" Project (one-week workshop in March in a Northern Province)
• Zamkuziphilisia Sewing Project (once a week in Umlazi)
• Umbilo Indian Community Center Senior Group Presentation (March 5th and possible workshop to follow)
• Proposal/Grant Writing (M and I are going to try to work on proposal/grantwriting to apply to some new funding sources for CAS projects)
  

Gold: A History of Disruption that Continues

This room at the KwaMuhle Museum reconstructs the conditions at a men's hostel used by miners during Apartheid.  As much as the room's placement in the museum suggests the use of these men's hostels for the mining industry is part of South Africa's pre-1994 past, most are still in use.  As the world's largest producer of gold and platinum, the discovery of these precious metals - largely found in the Witwatersrand range of hills - has pushed Johannesburg to be recognized as one of Africa's only "global cities" (a contested classification system used by the Globalization and World Cities group to recognize cities that function as "important nodes" in the global economic system).  The hostel system allowed the Apartheid government to control the presence of blacks and other immigrant mineworkers near the city of Johannesburg.  The men came to labor in the mines - many 2 miles underground to drill ore in tiny tunnels.  They would leave their families in the "homelands" that Apartheid created and visit their families only twice a year. 

The mines continue to employ over 200,000 workers and many thousands more in related industries - such as factories that produce specialized alloys with gold (including factories that combine gold with manganese - which is incredibly toxic in high exposure and has caused serious health issues here for workers in manganese plants - to create alloys for electronics industries).  Many of the hostels near mining areas are still in use in the same overcrowded conditions (in 2005 the average density was listed at 4.2 men per room), which leaves men little opportunity and little wages for them to bring their families to live with them if they desire.  This hostel system has been attributed as a factor for the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa because it continues to destabilize families and places workers in conditions where there is little else to do in terms of affordable activity after work except visit local informal settlements for inexpensive drinking and socializing at the shebeen. 

With the recent power infrastructure crisis many mines, including Gold Fields, have announced they may have to cut thousands of jobs (Gold Fields threatened the elimination of 6900 today).  The "value" of gold and platinum continues to rise, particularly with the limited production over the last two months and the reality that electricity rationing will likely continue over several years.   The devastation the gold mining industry can cause here has been both social and environmental - it is an industry that has been global from its inception in the mid-19th century in South Africa, and an especially vicious example showing the connection between human and environmental exploitation.