Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 401

Scenario Planning for White South Africa

Scenario planning is something of a cottage industry in South Africa and was particularly popular during the negotiations for democracy in the early 1990s. Careers were launched on the back of this industry, and speakers known for gazing into the crystal ball back then still pack halls with (white) middle class people worried about their future in the country today.

Scenario planning served as a kind of parallel process alongside the negotiations, especially in determining the direction of South Africa’s economic policy. While the former apartheid regime exposed ANC leaders to, for example, Derek Keys, a businessman who briefly turned politician during that period, scenario-planning exercises were used to influence the ANC’s thinking with dominant economic dogma.

These attempts to influence the ANC’s policy makers usually happened in opulent settings where the proffered ideas would be imbibed with a glass or two of wine. The most well known example is probably the Mont Fleur-scenarios, conjured up near Stellenbosch, a university town set among wine estates that has been a magnet for the well heeled.

Scenario planning is clearly not so much about “the future” but about the present. It functions as a strategy to normalize dominant assumptions, in that rather than the revelation of possible futures—albeit through a somewhat questionable, quasi-scientific method—participants are inducted into ways of thinking that only really benefit the status quo.

In scenario planning the results – the “scenarios” – depend on the choice of information fed in at the start, which is determined by the ideological position of the planner. The question is therefore not where Frans Cronje, in his book A Time Traveller’s Guide to Our Next Ten Years (Tafelberg, 2014), thinks South Africa will be in ten years’ time. The question is, rather, which ideological intervention Cronje regards as most urgent in the present and of which he would like to convince readers.

Apart from Cronje being the head of liberal think tank the South African Institute for Race Relations, another clue for readers appears early in the book when he describes the atmosphere in South Africa 20 years ago at the time of the negotiations for democracy:

Even if the country managed to avoid a civil war, many doubted whether the ANC, a socialist liberation movement long supported by the Soviet Union, could possibly govern South Africa. Board rooms and dinner parties were rife with fears that the new government would wreck the economy by expropriating land and nationalising key industries such as mining, thus destroying the middle classes. Fast forward to the present, and we know that the ANC has not ruined the economy, or turned South Africa into a third-world basket case.

This quote, with its inaccurate cliché about the “socialist ANC”, reveals the point of departure. He uses the words “we” and “our” freely, as in the title, but this is a very specific “we” and “our”. Who this “we” refers to becomes clearer when Cronje says: “contrary to popular opinion, significant progress has been made since 1994”. In the May 2014 elections, the ANC attracted some 11 million votes from people who probably mostly think that the country has made significant progress since 1994, so the “popular opinion” under discussion can’t be theirs. The first quote above shows “we” are the people in “board rooms and at dinner parties” – the “largely white middleclass”, as Cronje calls them later. Thus, the author combines the usual liberal emphasis on property rights as the only economic option with judgments associated with a certain form of whiteness. This is the ideological point of departure of this particular scenario planning.

The author then sketches a picture of a suburban existence of BBQ-ing next to the swimming pool amid the expansion of luxurious shopping centres and coffee shops over the past 20 years. Of course, the ANC government has already disproven apartheid rulers’ propaganda–that it would turn South Africa into “another African basket case”, as the oft-heard saying goes. Cronje also sounds surprised that middle-class life is still intact.

But still, the white middle class can’t sleep peacefully. It’s not their consciences keeping them up at night. The bugbear, Cronje unselfconsciously admits, is rather how the glorious middle class existence can continue undisturbed. Because the “real revolution” has only been averted temporarily. At this point appears the usual reference to the threat of the withdrawal of foreign investment to discipline any wayward reader who might be entertaining the daydream of social justice. There are greater economic powers at work, the author warns, that South Africans have to bow to.

Cronje, as the author of this “scenario”, believes that “the disadvantaged” harbor “growing expectations”. This is described as a “crisis”, a “curse” and a “cruel irony”. Obviously only the middle classes may hold expectations (of swimming and BBQ-ing, of course). In his view, having expectations is something that does not behoove those 25 million people living under the breadline in South Africa. His reasoning reminds one of the old colonial nightmare of the “restless natives”… if only they would accept their lot…

Given the ideological basis of Cronje’s planning exercise, Step One is obviously to ponder whether “the poor” will rise up, whether a “racist government” (apparently referring to a black government) will rule and whether wealthy people will be able to escape if things got out of hand. This elite-driven framing, with its implicit reference to “black racism”, draws on current white-right complaints of “reverse discrimination”. It is blind to the everyday interactions among people of different backgrounds that are not always race-based or about economic interests. Cronje-the-scenario-planner apparently does not wonder about ways to promote equality, or how to end poverty and discrimination or deepen democracy and human dignity.

He warns that change is “dead easy” because the “crisis of growing expectations” is happening in a context of constitutional rights and mechanisms. This confluence of factors makes a “second revolution” unavoidable. Presented in this way, post-apartheid South Africa’s commitment to comprehensive human rights is part of the problem.

The scenarios he then proceeds to paint revolve around the economy. Instead of democracy or democratic mechanisms, Cronje’s scenarios speak of mysterious “feedback mechanisms” that determine “freedom” in all likelihood of the economic kind. This conceptual wooliness strengthens the impression that the liberalism on offer here is specifically concerned with the maintenance of existing economic privilege. Building South Africa’s democracy, with its emphasis on human dignity, is less important.

* An earlier version of this review first appeared in Afrikaans in Rapport newspaper, South Africa. The image is from “Casting Shadows” by Edward West.

The Future Scenario for White South Africa

Scenario planning is something of a cottage industry in South Africa and was particularly popular during the negotiations for democracy in the early 1990s. Careers were launched on the back of this industry, and speakers known for gazing into the crystal ball back then still pack halls with (white) middle class people worried about their future in the country today.

Scenario planning served as a kind of parallel process alongside the negotiations, especially in determining the direction of South Africa’s economic policy. While the former apartheid regime exposed ANC leaders to, for example, Derek Keys, a businessman who briefly turned politician during that period, scenario-planning exercises were used to influence the ANC’s thinking with dominant economic dogma.

These attempts to influence the ANC’s policy makers usually happened in opulent settings where the proffered ideas would be imbibed with a glass or two of wine. The most well known example is probably the Mont Fleur-scenarios, conjured up near Stellenbosch, a university town set among wine estates that has been a magnet for the well heeled.

Scenario planning is clearly not so much about “the future” but about the present. It functions as a strategy to normalize dominant assumptions, in that rather than the revelation of possible futures—albeit through a somewhat questionable, quasi-scientific method—participants are inducted into ways of thinking that only really benefit the status quo.

In scenario planning the results – the “scenarios” – depend on the choice of information fed in at the start, which is determined by the ideological position of the planner. The question is therefore not where Frans Cronje, in his book A Time Traveller’s Guide to Our Next Ten Years (Tafelberg, 2014), thinks South Africa will be in ten years’ time. The question is, rather, which ideological intervention Cronje regards as most urgent in the present and of which he would like to convince readers.

Apart from Cronje being the head of liberal think tank the South African Institute for Race Relations, another clue for readers appears early in the book when he describes the atmosphere in South Africa 20 years ago at the time of the negotiations for democracy:

Even if the country managed to avoid a civil war, many doubted whether the ANC, a socialist liberation movement long supported by the Soviet Union, could possibly govern South Africa. Board rooms and dinner parties were rife with fears that the new government would wreck the economy by expropriating land and nationalising key industries such as mining, thus destroying the middle classes. Fast forward to the present, and we know that the ANC has not ruined the economy, or turned South Africa into a third-world basket case.

This quote, with its inaccurate cliché about the “socialist ANC”, reveals the point of departure. He uses the words “we” and “our” freely, as in the title, but this is a very specific “we” and “our”. Who this “we” refers to becomes clearer when Cronje says: “contrary to popular opinion, significant progress has been made since 1994”. In the May 2014 elections, the ANC attracted some 11 million votes from people who probably mostly think that the country has made significant progress since 1994, so the “popular opinion” under discussion can’t be theirs. The first quote above shows “we” are the people in “board rooms and at dinner parties” – the “largely white middleclass”, as Cronje calls them later. Thus, the author combines the usual liberal emphasis on property rights as the only economic option with judgments associated with a certain form of whiteness. This is the ideological point of departure of this particular scenario planning.

The author then sketches a picture of a suburban existence of BBQ-ing next to the swimming pool amid the expansion of luxurious shopping centres and coffee shops over the past 20 years. Of course, the ANC government has already disproven apartheid rulers’ propaganda–that it would turn South Africa into “another African basket case”, as the oft-heard saying goes. Cronje also sounds surprised that middle-class life is still intact.

But still, the white middle class can’t sleep peacefully. It’s not their consciences keeping them up at night. The bugbear, Cronje unselfconsciously admits, is rather how the glorious middle class existence can continue undisturbed. Because the “real revolution” has only been averted temporarily. At this point appears the usual reference to the threat of the withdrawal of foreign investment to discipline any wayward reader who might be entertaining the daydream of social justice. There are greater economic powers at work, the author warns, that South Africans have to bow to.

Cronje, as the author of this “scenario”, believes that “the disadvantaged” harbor “growing expectations”. This is described as a “crisis”, a “curse” and a “cruel irony”. Obviously only the middle classes may hold expectations (of swimming and BBQ-ing, of course). In his view, having expectations is something that does not behoove those 25 million people living under the breadline in South Africa. His reasoning reminds one of the old colonial nightmare of the “restless natives”… if only they would accept their lot…

Given the ideological basis of Cronje’s planning exercise, Step One is obviously to ponder whether “the poor” will rise up, whether a “racist government” (apparently referring to a black government) will rule and whether wealthy people will be able to escape if things got out of hand. This elite-driven framing, with its implicit reference to “black racism”, draws on current white-right complaints of “reverse discrimination”. It is blind to the everyday interactions among people of different backgrounds that are not always race-based or about economic interests. Cronje-the-scenario-planner apparently does not wonder about ways to promote equality, or how to end poverty and discrimination or deepen democracy and human dignity.

He warns that change is “dead easy” because the “crisis of growing expectations” is happening in a context of constitutional rights and mechanisms. This confluence of factors makes a “second revolution” unavoidable. Presented in this way, post-apartheid South Africa’s commitment to comprehensive human rights is part of the problem.

The scenarios he then proceeds to paint revolve around the economy. Instead of democracy or democratic mechanisms, Cronje’s scenarios speak of mysterious “feedback mechanisms” that determine “freedom” in all likelihood of the economic kind. This conceptual wooliness strengthens the impression that the liberalism on offer here is specifically concerned with the maintenance of existing economic privilege. Building South Africa’s democracy, with its emphasis on human dignity, is less important.

* An earlier version of this review first appeared in Afrikaans in Rapport newspaper, South Africa. The image is from “Casting Shadows” by Edward West.

The Rules of South African Hip Hop in 2014

South African hip-hop has become too safe. Cutting edge rappers are being sidelined in favour of tried-and-tested mainstays – creating a cycle of regurgitated talent that receives preferential treatment by radio stations, booking agents, and sponsors. Doubtless, the artists in the spotlight have dedicated endless hours to their craft, and the fact that their work is paying off is something to be celebrated.

The problem is that there aren’t any rappers filling the vacuum which results when the mainstream and the underground* become distinct entities. In short, the exciting new shit coming out is still not getting heard by most people.

In South Africa, radio still makes the rules. Talent exists in bundles across different regions of the country, but no one has really stepped up to directly challenge the state of affairs, be it through different approaches to songwriting, or a different strategy to marketing their music.

Commercial radio is partly responsible for the mainstream’s generic song format and its silences when faced with issues affecting South Africa’s working class and unemployed citizens. Corporate culture, which has been gunning for South African hip-hop’s soul over the past five years, has also got a guilty hand in the lack of engagement with real issues. Sponsors have their own agendas, and these agendas oftentimes don’t align with sentiments which may be deemed anti-anything.

I’m not implying that hip-hop’s sole purpose is to raise awareness, or that blue collar workers don’t love or support mainstream South African hip-hop. Neither am I suggesting that mainstream rappers are incapable of composing socially conscious music.

Rap music in the South Africa has surrendered wholly to the embrace of commercial radio song structures, resulting in mostly unimaginative, cookie-cutter songs achieving the most airplay.

In the same breath, the scene is the healthiest it’s ever been. Some rappers are making a living off of their craft, while general interest from the public continues to gain momentum. People who were celebrating when Skwatta Kamp won a SAMA Award under the Best Hip-Hop Album category ten years ago have made the transition into adulthood, and with that passage comes a grander appreciation for the music they grew up listening to. Rap shows have transcended their former status as an exclusively male dominion, while the culture and its accompanying elements – grafitti, deejaying and breakdancing – are afforded greater airtime during peak hours on South African radio and television stations.

Hip-hop landed in the Cape Flats in the early 80s, reared its head during the dying years of apartheid, went through multiple identity crises and then finally settled, albeit shakily, where it is today – as the love child of kwaito music and whatever the flavour of the moment is in the pop world. Over the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you an serialised exposé on the state of Mzansi hip hop in 2014.

Extra

We asked the African Hip-Hop Blog to compile a soundcloud playlist of ten top South African rap songs during the first part of 2014. Dig in and have a jam!

*Underground, in this context, shall be used to refer to any musical outfit with no songs on regular radio rotation.

**An earlier version of this article appeared on Mahala. 

The legacy of the ‘German Bob Geldof of development aid’

Austrian actor and founder of the NGO ‘Menschen für Menschen’ (People for People), Karlheinz Böhm was buried last Friday in Salzburg, Austria. His remains came to rest in a cemetery in his native country yet earth from Africa was carried to Europe in order to allow him to rest in Ethiopian soil as he had wished to be buried in the country that he reportedly loved so much. In German-speaking Europe, which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Böhm, while he was alive, grew into the Bob Geldof of development aid. The NGO he founded in response to the drought and famine that struck the Horn of Africa in the 1980s raised huge sums of money and channelled development aid to Ethiopia. ‘Menschen für Menschen’ grew into an important development agent. Böhm’s iconic status as the actor who played the last emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire enabled the success of his fundraising and development work.

I grew up in a royalist household and from a young age on, I watched Böhm acting the emperor–my mother adores everything royal and aristocratic, real and imagined. Between 1955 and 1957, alongside the legendary Romy Schneider who played a radiant but tragic empress Sissi, Karl-Heinz Böhm was cast as Franz Joseph, the handsome young emperor of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Here‘s some highlights from the film):

In post-World War II Europe–still reeling from devastation and embracing the cold efficiency and sacrifice of the ’Wiederaufbau’ (reconstruction)–the trilogy of the Sissi movies provided relief in the form of nostalgic warmth, romance, law and order, and the ‘Beschaulichkeit’ (tranquillity) of the conservative Biedermeier 19th century era during which bourgeois life triumphed.

While we were watching the third of the three Sissi movies broadcast on German TV to commemorate Böhm,  my mother remembered how the two actors dealt differently with the legacy of their imperial, apparently life-defining roles: Romy Schneider entirely repudiated the over-idyllic and kitsch movies, a huge success that still endures, in which she mostly bats her eyelids at the handsome emperor. In contrast, Böhm is said to have found a meaningful purpose in the movies in that they made people happy and celebrated romantic love. It seems that this ambition, to make people happy, triggered Böhm’s founding of his own NGO. (He kept acting and starred in some popular English language films, including “Peeping Tom” in 1960, as well as in a range of Disney films)

In a relatively short period of time, his organisation grew into a powerful development actor in Germany and in Ethiopia. His wife, who hails from Ethiopia, runs a successful operation that it can almost no longer be called a NON-governmental organisation: given the political support it receives, in Germany and Ethiopia, it seems to behave as if it was an agent of official German development aid.

Germanophone celebrities line-up to pledge support, corporate sponsors abound. High school pupils are offered ‘packages’ for fundraising activities.

Judging from the material available on the website of  Menschen für Menschen, the focus is on mobilisation and collecting money to support educational and agricultural development projects.

Despite the success, some former sponsors dissent and claim that the NGO is inefficient. Critics point out that they may have received a clean bill from several organisations that rate NGOs yet they refuse to open their books to public scrutiny.

While critics claim that the NGO squanders the money and does not enough to allocate resources to really help people, the real question that one should ask is if this kind of development aid will really change anything in the long run? No doubt, there are Africans whose lives improve directly from this development aid. Is this good enough? With all the money collecting and mobilising young people in German schools, with all the corporate and government involvement, is there still enough space and time for critical reflection on development policy: what is the purpose of development aid? What is and should be the role of private or public actors? How does aid help – in the short and in the long run? What is the effect of development work on the donor countries? What image of Africa and Africans is being cultivated? Is this model sustainable? How does it look like in 50 years – will Germans still be collecting money for agricultural projects in Ethiopia? Or are Ethiopians then growing their own food, enough to feed all?

According to Jean Ziegler, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, almost one billion people out of a world population of some 7 billion, suffer hunger every day. The Declaration of Berne calculated in 2009 that the industrial states paid 8900 billion US$ to save their banks from collapse; the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO estimates that a 44 billion US$ investment would reduce extreme hunger by half.

At Böhm’s memorial, an Austrian politician reminded the audience that we were one world–there was no such thing as a third world or a first world.

Well, if this was truly the case, would western friends of Africa not do more to force their corporate and political elites to do more to combat hunger?

Why is the Wall St Journal trash-talking Ghana already? Go #BlackStars!

It’s World Cup time, bring on the articles full of historical stereotypes and racial codes disguised as insightful sports commentary.

For the past two World Cups, the USA team has been routinely decimated by the Ghanaian squads. As a Ghanaian American, I side with my Blackstars, and try to find the nearest Ghanaian restaurant to cheer the boys on. But every four years, I have to brace myself for the predictable slew of American media reporting about Ghana, which usually run along the lines of, WHAT/WHERE IS GHANA?  WHY DOES THIS POOR ,TINY COUNTRY KEEP BEATING US?

In the past these types of articles came out after the USA fell to Ghana. This year WSJ decided to one up the ante and publish one even before the first match between the two teams even started. In an article titled, “Who is Ghana, And Why Can’t the US Beat Them?”  writer Matthew Futterman makes an unoriginal attempt to try to explain Ghana’s past successes over America to the U.S. crowd.  What does he come up with? Because,  BIG BLACK STRONG MEN.

When you can’t go for reason, reach for stereotype.  According to Team USA, Ghana is “athletic and frightening” and “physical”. Futterman writes of the “haunting image” of Ghana’s  Asamoah Gyan “emasculating” the U.S defender Carlos Bocanegra. The writer seems both in awe of and frightened by Gyan’s “burly chest” and “rock hard shoulders”.  Michael Essien is a “beast” when healthy. We’ve all heard this before.

Of course, the reason why USA keeps falling to Ghana isn’t because of USA’s lack of strong players. It’s not because of strategy or tactical superiority on the part of the Black Stars and their coaching. The rhetoric lazily relies on the stereotype of scary,  beast-like Africans who, in the absence of a formal economy and state of the art training facilities, just rely on sheer athleticism.

Then usually come the articles that obsess over how poor Ghana is. Like this one about how Ghana is rationing electricity in order to allow its citizens to watch tonight’s match.

I’m no soccer expert, but maybe if the U.S.A. sports media  spent more time studying the styles and strategies of their Ghanaian opponents rather than focusing on how big and scary their muscles are or how poor their home country is, we’d know why the USA keeps falling to them.

For the record, Go Blackstars!

For an intro to the rich history of the Black Stars, check this superb essay by Kieran Dodds, featuring Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Amilcar Cabral and Stanley Matthews.

For the Tiki-Taka Brigade

The annihilation of Spain by the Netherlands last Friday (5-1) shocked and delighted football fans, pundits and creatives all at once, so much so that European pundits have something else to talk about, like total football, rather than moan, for the umpteeth time, about playing conditions. It will also inspire a million memes, videos, flipbooks and animations (there’s some already) for a while. And everyone will forward it to you on social media. Unlike cats or the latest petition over Blue Ivy’s hair (why?), you should click through. Here’s four exhibits. First, you can relive all five goals courtesy of Dutch TV Jack van Gelden’s commentary:

Then the animator Richard Swarbrick got creative:

There’s also a flipbook of Van Persie’s goal set to Brazilian TV commentary:

But back to the football. Here’s professor Arsene Wenger of Emirates University:

@Chiefboima World Cup Diary Day 4 – Copa pra Quem?

One of the popular phrases that came out of the protests in the run up to the Cup was, “Copa pra quem”? On the third and fourth days of the Cup, I’ve been darting around to different neighborhoods in Rio during the matches — from favelas to wealthy beach front neighborhoods, and from street corner botecos to corporate events — trying to get a sense of the answer to that question.

What I’ve observed is that tourists are out in full force, waking the city out of a sort of mid-winter slumber that we had been experiencing. I visited Lapa Friday night and it was at Carnival levels of busy. The city’s newly arrived visitors are friendly, but definitely in vacation mode, and that means they come with all the strange behavior which that entails. This includes plenty of small groups of men stalking around the now full beaches, a common occurence no doubt, however in an event where several people have already remarked to me about the disproportionate number of male visitors, this can become quite disconcerting. In the four days since the cup started I’ve heard the word brothel mentioned more often than in all of the four months I’ve lived here.

Talking with cab drivers has been informative. Almost every time a cab driver hears I speak English they’ll try to get in as much practice as they can during the ride. One guy said, “I don’t speak English, but I do speak money!” I asked him if he had met a lot of English speakers and he said Argentinians seem to be the most frequent customers and that they like to haggle prices. And it’s true, Argentinians are everywhere here. Fittingly so, as their team is playing against Bosnia-Herzegovina at Maracanã this evening.

Colombian fans also are making their presence known in its trans-amazonic neighbor. If you watched their match in Belo Horizonte against Greece on TV, you saw that almost the entire stadium was yellow with Colombia jerseys. I went down to the fan fest in Rio to watch the match with some Colombian friends, and their countryfolk were out in full force there as well. Since this match wasn’t as packed as the Brazil-Croatia opener, we were able to get into the official FIFA-sponsored screening venue without a problem. The crowd was joyful as Colombia dominated the match, but I actually enjoyed the experience at the overflow screen just outside the official FIFA venue more. There, informal vendors hawked cold local beers and Capirinha variations, while locals mixed with visitors in an open-beach atmosphere. Inside the highly securitized fan fest there were over the top multimedia displays, corporate sponsored booths, foreign ‘official-sponsor’ beverage companies, live music acts, an hype-man MC, video cameras galore, and carnival ride distractions. I personally preferred the experience of just a screen and the people.

I was also able to visit some Brazilian friends who are against the Cup this weekend, and was able to discuss a little their feelings about the tournament now that it’s kicked off. I asked one friend if he in his heart was cheering for Brazil when they hit the field, even after all the problems with the hosting. He said no, that he was cheering for Brazil to lose. He actually felt that Thursday’s win was cheap, that the ref had unfairly helped the Brazilian side with a couple of blown calls — including the penalty kick that put them ahead. I told him that when you spend $11 Billion dollars to host the World Cup, the home team is gonna get a few calls thrown their way. And my friend’s sentiment isn’t uncommon amongst Brazilians. The New York Times published a survey before the tournament asking people in various countries what their cheering preferences were. Brazil, the U.S., and Russia all had a significant percentage saying they were cheering against their own national squads. In the U.S., I chalk it up to the large immigrant population, as I am one of those who often roots for other sides according to a complex web of multi-national allegiances. In Brazil it is definitely related to people feeling defeated about their government’s acquiescence to global capital and FIFA (a feeling that Jon Oliver explains so well.)

I get the sense that there’s a general feeling of fatigue amongst those who participated in the protests, disillusioned by the lack of response to their demands by their government. What’s more, the police response to the protests last year was extremely harsh, and many people who are more moderate in their direct action techniques have been coerced into staying off the streets. This time, on top of the normal riot police, the Army is involved, and private firms like Blackwater have been flown in. More than one person has told me that while they were involved in the protests last year, they’d be quietly opposing the cup in the safety of their homes during the tournament. Cheering against the Seleçao is an appropriate, and probably cathartic form of personal protest.

So, in light of all this, I asked my friend who he’d been cheering for, and we both agreed that any African team playing would be our choice. I like to expand that include the African diaspora, and for many reasons was very excited when Costa Rica dominated Uruguay yesterday. It actually brought me back to that infamous Uruguay-Ghana quarter final during the last World Cup, giving me a bit of redemption for that painful Ghana loss. Incidentally, I had watched that match four years ago while in Bolivia, alongside a group of Brazilians living there. When I found out one of them was cheering for Ghana, I asked why he would cheer for an African team, and not his southern neighbor. He looked at me and said, “look at my skin, this is in my blood.”

As far as for me, yesterday my day was capped with an agonizingly delayed triumph by my team Cote d’Ivoire. I celebrated enthusiastically, in a friend’s apartment, and perhaps a few thousand Brazilians did as well.

@Chiefboima World Cup Diary Day 2 – Protests and Fan Fests

I haven’t been on social media yet, and I’m sure everyone’s already talking about this, but how fitting is it that the first goal of the tournament is an own goal by Brazil? I mean four goals scored by Brazil, one for the other team, perfectly illustrates Brazilian feelings about the build up to this tournament. It also perhaps sums up day one of the tournament in Rio.

Scorecard on the streets – the protests in Rio, Sao Paulo, and Natal pretty much dominated the first half. Riot police responded with tear gas and concussion grenades. The national news station Globo TV fittingly was switching back between shots of the street violence and people in the fan fests, offering a perfect picture of the two Brazils we’ll see during the cup (however two Brazils is a constant theme here, even without the cup.) It seemed like the protesters had been able to make their point just went the entire world was watching.

During the morning, I had heard that traffic and supermarkets in Zona Sul were at apocalyptic slowdown levels so I, living in Zona Oeste, was worried about being able to make it to a place to watch the game in time. However by the time 3pm rolled around the streets seemed empty, and my wife and I hit the omnibus to see how far inside the city we could get. Already the city was like a ghost town, and besides one short traffic stop at Sao Conrado the streets were clearer than your average Monday evening. We breezed through the city, and all I could think about was how easily everything was working. It seemed that Brazil was managing this situation – without a match in the city and on a public holiday – pretty well.

To be completely honest, I couldn’t help thinking how the chaos that everyone predicted with “imagina na copa” was no where to be seen. The usually bustling entrances to Rocinha and Vidigal were empty, Leblon and Ipanema were clear, and besides a few surfers on the beach, it seemed like everyone had gone home to watch the match. Carnival was much more chaotic than this, and that happens every year. I started to think that questions of Brazil’s ability to host the cup were completely unfounded. Was this routine any different than a normal Seleçao game day? Was Brazil just shooting itself an own goal in fearing its ability to host such a mega event?

We had gotten to Copacabana so easily that when we passed the fan fest, we decided to brave it and join the throng. We got off the bus at the front gate of the official fan fest, which was also the place we had heard a protest was forming. There were plenty of riot police and helicopters, which again gave the whole scene an apocalyptic feel. It was a strange dissonance against already inebriated fans on the beach. Porta potty lines were long, but generally people were in a festive mood.

By the time we had gotten to the fan fest the gates were closed so we opted for the overflow screen down the beach, which was also already packed out. That’s when the anti-FIFA protests rolled through, and we ended up in the middle between the fans and the protesters, with riot police lined up on the other side of the protesters. I was worried a little that the riot police were going to do something crazy, but the protests was peaceful and passed by in a calm manner. Maybe the police didn’t want to have teargas around the tourists?

You all watched the match so you already know the score on the pitch, but some interesting moments to take note. 1) When the first goal happened, Marcelo’s own goal, I was actually worried that if Brazil didn’t win, as an unexpected consequence of over blown security, the riot police were going to turn on the fans. This added plenty of motivation for my own cheers when Neymar came through to save the day. 2) The moon rising over Copacabana beach as Brazil settled into the lead, and the crowd settled into a contented hum, was a beautiful moment. It was probably the first time I felt a part of Brazil since moving here. 3) I was amazed when a trio of older Brazilian women of different races settled in behind me and kept expressing their motherly concern over the fatigue of the players on the field. 4) Are all English fans annoying? At least the group I was standing next to was self-aware enough to repeat over and over “we’re American” and “we loooove soccer” really loud. To their credit they were probably the most diverse single crowd at the beach, simultaneously repping Jamaica, Iran, and I would assume a few other places while sporting English jerseys. 5) At the same time, in a post-9/11 world, U.S. Americans abroad have seemed to become used to hiding in plain sight. Ninety-percent of the time I would hear English in an American accent, I would look up and see a Brazilian jersey or colors (I was no exception). I get the sense that this is never something an Argentinian would do.

By the time the second wave of protests passed by the overflow screen (besides the military helicopter circling, I’m sure those inside the highly secured fan fest didn’t even notice their presence), it seemed a little that the protesters voices had fallen off into another moment of time. FIFA, with the help of the Seleçao, had come thru and won in the second half. However when I thought back to the empty streets, and the relatively low impact the match made on the actual functioning of the city, all the money spent on this event went into stark relief. If the action in Rio couldn’t hold a candle to the madness of Carnival, or even an average work day, why all the money and stadiums just to fill some ridiculous FIFA standard? At the end of the day the question of whether or not Brazil could handle the cup to me was answered with a resounding yes. The question of whether or not they should still remains.

For the perfect soundtrack, all the way from Rio de Janeiro, check out @ChiefBoima with AfricasaCountry Radio, Episode 3. You can listen to all the episodes here.

Save The Children Tries Models and Sex Appeal

Is your NGO looking for innovative tactics to reach new Northern donors? Here’s one for the books. Last week, Save the Children released a video in which they dupe models into advocating for children’s rights. The video opens with a bunch of models on a set, prepping themselves for business as usual. The directors instruct them to sell whatever will appear on the cue cards by being sexy as they can. While the models put their art of seduction to work, the script suddenly changes from “lust is my mistress” to statistics about children’s poverty and death tolls. An obvious turnoff, but the models have to keep it hot. After some initial awkwardness and wonderment (“ehh…are you attracted to me right now?”) the self-rubbing becomes more hesitant (except for one guy, whose arousal—hands down—is the most authentic element of the whole clip), and the spectacle culminates in the models’ heartfelt conclusion that “we can’t make this issue sexy, but it deserves your attention”.

The campaign, apparently, was built on Save the Children’s heightened frustration about the missing link between children’s suffering and sex appeal. As one of their communications people put it, “If only we can get people to hear these issues, but it is hard to make it sexy”. In other words, one of the world’s top independent charities for children thought that it would be a good idea to link trying-too-hard Euro-eroticism and raising money to save poor Third World children. Any discordance between the two was supposed to be eliminated by sentiment alone.

The result: in only 2 minutes and 18 seconds, development advocacy hit a new low. The problem with the video is not that the use of sex antics to save poor children’s lives is out of place. This tactic—arousing donors’ libidos in order to touch their hearts—is hardly revolutionary in the development world. It gained popularity after NGOs came under fire for their reliance on what was dubbed poverty porn: the practice of pathologising hapless and starving children, and using images of this extreme otherness to draw in donors. Critics (mainly those from the South) of poverty porn complained that such images planted a highly essentialized and reductionist image of ‘the unfortunate Third World other’ in the minds of northern public. Another problem with targeting the North through emotional and moral appeals was that the cash flows that pictures of fly-covered babies generated were too unreliable. While these images produced the intended effect for a short time, the ‘difference’ between donor and victim, on which the strategy relied and capitalized, soon lead to donors’ compassion fatigue. The UN’s utterly dry development vocab (sustainability, anyone?) didn’t offer much gusto to get the masses fired up, (and paying up) either.

One solution to the problem was to get celebs on board; you know, the sexy entertainment type. Bono, the ever-shaded rockstar and self-declared poverty authority had of course loudly and proudly claimed a position at these frontlines ages ago. In 2007, having grown quite comfortable with the global prestige and credibility that the development frontlines tend to bestow on elite occupants, he felt comfortable enough to claim that what the world needed was the globalization of the revolutionary mix that he believed he embodied: adding some sex appeal to the business of saving lives. As Bono’s ill-advised logic and depoliticized focus on symptoms rather than causes of poverty were echoed both far and wide, we became accustomed to to watching sexy models and celebs speak on behalf of the poor—whom we learned to refer to as the ‘voiceless’. The problem with the celebrity-as-spokesperson, however, is that celebrities’ loud presences also come with silences and absences. With every shoot, every show and every spectacle of seduction, those crucial absences and silences become less noticeable.

The alternative of offering the children—for whom all this celebrity and sex appeal is being poured out—a platform to be their own spokespersons no longer makes sense to us. The Save the Children video tells their young beneficiaries: “you are simply not hot enough, and your stories are either too shocking or too boring. We have come to accept our inability to represent you, so this time we are not taking any risks. This time we are leaving you, your agency, and your ability to speak and define your own story out of it altogether. It’s for your own good”.

The NGO’s perception of future donors isn’t flattering either. Not even pretending to view them as people who can be educated, moved or mobilized, the NGO appeals to their lust, paternalistic benevolence and their eagerness to share sexy poverty videos on Facebook to quench their own moral thirst. It’s like they are saying: “We know what you want. Now pay like the shallow buffoon you are”.

What the new Sexy Development Discourse doesn’t seem to get is that the problem with the low appeal of terms like sustainability and other dry development talk is due to the fact that they are vague, impersonal and detached. Having unaware models fake sincerity to ‘interpret’ the lives of those who are reduced to one giant statistic is not going to bridge that divide.

(And) It’s not like there are no alternatives. Especially when it comes to children, who are generally perceived as innocent and savable, there are ways to move those who have access to money and power to action. Not by manufacturing and widening the difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’, but—surprise!—by showing that we are not, in fact, all that different. It’s the responsibility and the duty of NGOs like Save the Children to educate potential Western donors on both the causes of poverty and the humanity of their beneficiaries. Is there a place for celebrities at all? Sure. When they’re willing to tone down the egos and their volumes, and are prepared to swallow any misguided slogans, they can do great work. As we have written before, Colin Greenwood is a great example of a rock star who knows how to pull this one off. Let people like him be an example, rather than Bono.

And yeah. We beg you to leave the writhing models out of it, too.

Do White South Africans constitute a tribe and if so, are they guilty of tribalism?

In a recent article published by Africa is a Country, The Story of a South African “Tribe”, Jared Sacks argues that tribalism is alive and well.  Drawing on Thabo Mbeki’s comments on tribalism in October 2013, he suggests that those really guilty of tribalism are Afrikaaners and the English who practice a sophisticated incognito kind of tribalism. They do this in two fragmented camps when voting for either DA or the Freedom Front Plus, but do it all the same with harrowing consequences. Therefore, Sacks’ suggests, it is white people who are the real tribalists and it is their “homeboyism” which poses the biggest challenge to change in this country.

The article seems to me an attempt at uncovering ‘our’ racial and categorical prejudices as well as challenging how we understand tribalism. Sacks seems to be trying his hand at what some have called discursive rupture. He eggs us towards an epistemic break with ideas we have come to accept as matters of fact or historical taxonomies. [Tribes are black people or other uncivilized people. There are different kinds of tribes. These blacks, smeared in animal fat, fought each other with sticks and stones until the arrival of the white man rescued them from oblivion and destined savagery – or so, I imagine, the trope goes].

We are presented with a supposed deconstruction of naturalized anti-black racism – how we think and label black people – whilst the issue of white supremacy is highlighted. But I wonder, is this really a benign white radical anti-racist proposition?

While I also fell for the literary trick by assuming he is referring to the two largest black groups in the country, when he criticizes tribalism, I think this seemingly anti-racist discursive turn is actually a slight-of-hand move that should be read as subterfuge.  I think Jared’s move here, like those of many fair-minded social activists, actually rearticulates white supremacy and necessarily arrives at a problematic conclusion. The problematic claim being: we can lump together prejudice, bigotry, tribalism and white supremacy. The aim is clear. White solidarity and white supremacy is just another form of tribalism equal to and – by his definition – necessarily similar to the irksome tribalism addressed by Mbeki: differing from ‘black tribalism’ only in qualitative terms. This of course does little in the way of conceptual fidelity and has troublesome consequences. 

The juxtaposition of ‘black tribalism’ with ‘white tribalism’ allows for the fallacious claim of parity between oppressors and oppressed. That is to say, black people are guilty tribalism and so are white people. Both are engaged in debilitating and nefarious practices and each for their own narrow agendas.  Sacks subsumes the problem of white supremacy and white solidarity under the notion of tribalism. This unduly stretches the explanatory scope and power of tribalism, even if we allow for poetic license to prove a point about how we think about such concepts. I argue, this re-calibration of tribalism actually obfuscates where the term comes from and masks who did what to whom, in the truest ‘historical’ sense.

It is a willful negligence of how tribalism has come to be understood. Tribalism has been understood as a settler colonialist project nurtured in the bosom of anthropology at pains to disaggregate and atomize the indigenous population as well as continued black resistance incipient in the eighteenth century. It is a mind-set and practice engendered by the conflicts extant between various groups of people, which were ultimately fine-tuned and enhanced by white settler colonialism for the distinct purpose of subjugation. Divide and rule. Therefore, white supremacy and white solidarity whether practiced in dichotomies [DA and FF+] or not, do not equate to tribalism or a form of tribalism. Tribalism is a product of white domination and white supremacy. 

I am not arguing Sacks’ proposition because I don’t have a problem with anti-black epistemes or white solidarity. I do. Rather, my problem is with the lack of conceptual fidelity giving rise to malapropos notions that are irreconcilable with history or the status quo.  

I maintain that that the ‘white tribe’ is not just another group of actors who by and large happen to hold the monopoly on power and wealth. My point is, white society – if you like – invented tribalism to subordinate and subjugate black people. To suggest anything else is toying with sophistry and must be read as such.

What about Sacks’ comments on recalcitrant ‘white tribalism’ viz-a-viz the need to redistribute land and economic power? He says, “Are white South Africans going to change their “homeboyism” anytime soon?…Without redistribution of land, economic power and the complete desegregation of our society on a democratic and socialist basis, tribalism among Afrikaans and English South Africans will continue to prevent the achievement of a truly nonracial and inclusive society [emphasis added]. Does he not recoup himself here?  

No, not at all. I think the approach is altogether wrong and informed by a worldview that still negates the obvious solution that is black power. Such an approach privileges white actors as the master race with the power to free black people economically. While it is true that anti-black racist politics have shaped power relations in this country, the stumbling block or what “prevents the achievement of a truly non-racial and inclusive society” is not a benevolent ‘white tribe’. Nowhere in history do we see a even moderately self-interested and powerful group voluntarily liberating – in the truest sense of the word – a group they oppress/exploit. 

The answer clearly must lie with a demonstrably popular pro-black, socialist and revolutionary political project that will form the antitheses to a white supremacist, liberal democratic, economic system being managed by the ANC and the DA. This of course only rings true if we take seriously a dictum that says “liberation can never be granted or acceded to and must necessarily be fought for and taken, always”. 

This is an edited version of the article,which first appeared in the Conmag.