I lasted less than 24 hours in Gaborone. It is something like a Johannesburg in the sense that a western business sense seems to have been ushered in, which is possibly justified by many opinions that Botswana has 'the fastest growing economy in Africa', or something like that. But what does it mean for an economy to grow?
When I was in Lesotho, the individual that I spent my time with and stayed with his family once said to me 'Lesotho is a poor country'. I asked him why he said that, and noted that the notion of 'poor' is based on a western model of GDPs and capital, but Lesotho is, in fact, a rich country in the fact that it has sufficient land for its population and has a very agrarian lifestyle. I told him that money with only get you so far, as you cannot eat it. Those who control land and food production are the ones that will be guaranteed survival, as Tolstoy so aptly noted in his allegory Ivan the Fool.
One of the things that has really come to the fore, however, and really made me understand the situation in Africa, that is, the social situation in Africa, is what I can only best sum up as:
"Regardless of whether it is a socio-political challenge created by the environment one lives in or a personal challenge created and implemented by one on oneself, it is only when survival challenges an individual that that individual becomes and remains conscious."
By that I mean I realize why I enjoy Africa (and 'the developing world', like during my travels in Asia) so much more than 'the west' is because people are forced to be conscious so that they may survive in a socio-economic environment where survival cannot be taken for granted, as it too often is in the affluent west.
One can think about it this way: if one knows that all one needs to do is 'enter the system' and they will basically be guaranteed eight hours a day five days a week doing whatever but, importantly, making more than enough money to survive, there is no reason for that person to change their ways, unless they feel that there is more to survival than simply being able to afford whatever basic needs and luxuries that they should require.
And this is a vicious cycle perpetuated by the capitalist mentality, and exemplified by the fact that the names on people's lips are no longer the Platos, Leonardo da Vincis, Max Plancks, and Alexander Flemings of the world, i.e. those that contributed to our collective well-being through theory and practice. Rather, it is the Bill Gates's, the David Beckhams, the Justin Biebers, the Johnny Depps, and the American Idol winners of the world, i.e. those with power (in whatever form) and money.
This shows the dramatic shift that has occurred in the past century where capital has usurped merit with regard to importance to the 'random individual'. And because of this, there is an abyss that has opened up before us because, as Marx said 150 years ago, capitalism, which is based on profit, cannot sustain itself, because eventually there are no new markets that can be exploited for profit. This may be a blip in human evolution where a few decades or a few centuries down the road we realize the pointlessness, uselessness, and stupidity of following a track that is based on vanity and personal acclaim over merit, theory, and socio-political sustainability. The human race is at a very interesting crossroads. It is of my humble opinion that the current situation can be summed up best by a quote from Patrick Stewart (as Captain Jean-Luc Picard) in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation:
"For us to go forward, the cycle must end."
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
On the Road
No, not the Jack Kerouac novel, but I dont have regular access to email as I've been running from pillar to post: Cape Town to Mafeteng (Lesotho) via Bloemfontein and Maseru, then on to Joburg where I stayed in Soweto (wonderful!! I think my new favourite intellectual pastime is walking through 'seedy' black townships and fraternizing with the locals) and now after a number of breakdowns, Im in Gaborone, Botswana. Off to Harare next week.
It's a rough life...
It's a rough life...
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Notes from a Small Country
It's been awhile since I posted, mostly because it's largely been business as usual around here now that university is out and Im preparing to spend my break in various other southern Africa countries.
Today, however, I had to go into town to do a bit of volunteer work with an organization that is trying to put together cheap high school textbooks to help get more people educated in a country where a lot of people have few resources, especially in the townships.
As I got on the train car at Rondebosch, I heard an all-too-familiar 'commotion' in the form of some random guy blithering on about how Africa must give themselves over to Jesus Christ and yadda-yadda-yadda. While I stood there, a guy opposite me was taking a bit of an interest in me. The usual 'icebreaker' followed: "Hey man, you know, you look a lot like... Him." I said "Yeah well..." because as much as my appearance has got me into many interesting conversations with many interesting people, most of them just sort of make that comment and it doesn't really go anywhere. But then he pushed to the 'next level' asking me if I was a Christian. And then we got into a discussion about religion. So I asked him what I usually ask these sort of people in true 'Fanonist' style: why is it that after being persecuted and enslaved for over a century by Europeans, and still to this day feeling a fair bit of animosity towards colonialism and neo-colonialism (with good reason), they find favour in 'the white man's religion'?
But this guy was quite smart and quite interesting. It turned out that he was from Gabon ("Libreville?" I asked, since I know all the capital cities) and then he started talking about the 'head of his tribe' in his village. I didn't know much of anything about Gabon, and he told me that he came from a village called 'Bongoville' that was named after this 'tribal head' who he described alternatively as his 'uncle' and 'basically his father', namely Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon for 42 years from 1967 to his death in 2009.
What struck me most about what he talked about, however, was the manner in which he described the situation in Gabon in such graphic detail. I had used terms like 'fucked over' and such, and this guy proceeded to use the same sort of terms in such graphic detail that I didnt know whether he was speaking figuratively or was actually describing what happened. He told me something like "when the white men came to Omar Bongo and took him into the forest and fucked him [and he actually went through the somatic motions to go along with act], he didn't cry. He let them do it again and again, but he didn't say anything, because his sadness was inside him. Then when they were done with him and left, he told them when they came back that if they ever touched anyone else in his tribe, he would kill them [and here again he acted out a few mock haymakers]."
As I said, I didn't know anything about Gabon at the time, but reading the wiki article about Omar Bongo, it seems that Gabon had incredible wealth, which now justifies why he kept telling me how the faith in African people derives from the manner in which they have been blessed with resources, and that the people of Gabon strongly feel that they are, in some sense, 'chosen ones' because of the rich wealth that was bequeathed to them. He told me, in a way that very creepily reflects Sartre's declarations in the preface to The Wretched of the Earth, e.g.:
1961. Listen: ‘Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience.’ The tone is new. Who dares to speak thus? It is an African, a man from the Third World, an ex-‘native’. He adds: ‘Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to keep away from it.’ In other words, she’s done for. A truth which is not pleasant to state but of which we are all convinced, are we not, fellow-Europeans, in the marrow of our bones?
He said that Africa in general is where things actually happen, that Westerners are basically zombies made content by wealth. That Westerners come to Africa because the peoples and cultures are interesting and beautiful to behold. That Africa is where all the resources are, it has been richly endowed with resources.
That is why people have faith, he says. Because they can see that they are in a privileged position, despite their history being sabotaged by economic crimes.
But it wasn't all fun and games. He told me with brutal honesty how as a young boy of around 9, he saw his mother raped and his village compromised. That there were definitely things that he had seen growing up that were filled with shocks and horror.
When I got off the train, I was already sort of 'late' to where I was supposed to go, but still I spent about 10 minutes standing at the train station listening to this guy's story. And then he told me about how he had actually fled from Gabon for various reasons, that people were looking for him for some reasons, that in his village and later in Libreville there had been problems, but I didn't really understand what was behind it all.
And then he told me he had to go to a class. He was being taught how to fight like Bruce Lee, so that when it came time for him to meet these assailants, he would be ready.
Today, however, I had to go into town to do a bit of volunteer work with an organization that is trying to put together cheap high school textbooks to help get more people educated in a country where a lot of people have few resources, especially in the townships.
As I got on the train car at Rondebosch, I heard an all-too-familiar 'commotion' in the form of some random guy blithering on about how Africa must give themselves over to Jesus Christ and yadda-yadda-yadda. While I stood there, a guy opposite me was taking a bit of an interest in me. The usual 'icebreaker' followed: "Hey man, you know, you look a lot like... Him." I said "Yeah well..." because as much as my appearance has got me into many interesting conversations with many interesting people, most of them just sort of make that comment and it doesn't really go anywhere. But then he pushed to the 'next level' asking me if I was a Christian. And then we got into a discussion about religion. So I asked him what I usually ask these sort of people in true 'Fanonist' style: why is it that after being persecuted and enslaved for over a century by Europeans, and still to this day feeling a fair bit of animosity towards colonialism and neo-colonialism (with good reason), they find favour in 'the white man's religion'?
But this guy was quite smart and quite interesting. It turned out that he was from Gabon ("Libreville?" I asked, since I know all the capital cities) and then he started talking about the 'head of his tribe' in his village. I didn't know much of anything about Gabon, and he told me that he came from a village called 'Bongoville' that was named after this 'tribal head' who he described alternatively as his 'uncle' and 'basically his father', namely Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon for 42 years from 1967 to his death in 2009.
What struck me most about what he talked about, however, was the manner in which he described the situation in Gabon in such graphic detail. I had used terms like 'fucked over' and such, and this guy proceeded to use the same sort of terms in such graphic detail that I didnt know whether he was speaking figuratively or was actually describing what happened. He told me something like "when the white men came to Omar Bongo and took him into the forest and fucked him [and he actually went through the somatic motions to go along with act], he didn't cry. He let them do it again and again, but he didn't say anything, because his sadness was inside him. Then when they were done with him and left, he told them when they came back that if they ever touched anyone else in his tribe, he would kill them [and here again he acted out a few mock haymakers]."
As I said, I didn't know anything about Gabon at the time, but reading the wiki article about Omar Bongo, it seems that Gabon had incredible wealth, which now justifies why he kept telling me how the faith in African people derives from the manner in which they have been blessed with resources, and that the people of Gabon strongly feel that they are, in some sense, 'chosen ones' because of the rich wealth that was bequeathed to them. He told me, in a way that very creepily reflects Sartre's declarations in the preface to The Wretched of the Earth, e.g.:
1961. Listen: ‘Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience.’ The tone is new. Who dares to speak thus? It is an African, a man from the Third World, an ex-‘native’. He adds: ‘Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to keep away from it.’ In other words, she’s done for. A truth which is not pleasant to state but of which we are all convinced, are we not, fellow-Europeans, in the marrow of our bones?
He said that Africa in general is where things actually happen, that Westerners are basically zombies made content by wealth. That Westerners come to Africa because the peoples and cultures are interesting and beautiful to behold. That Africa is where all the resources are, it has been richly endowed with resources.
That is why people have faith, he says. Because they can see that they are in a privileged position, despite their history being sabotaged by economic crimes.
But it wasn't all fun and games. He told me with brutal honesty how as a young boy of around 9, he saw his mother raped and his village compromised. That there were definitely things that he had seen growing up that were filled with shocks and horror.
When I got off the train, I was already sort of 'late' to where I was supposed to go, but still I spent about 10 minutes standing at the train station listening to this guy's story. And then he told me about how he had actually fled from Gabon for various reasons, that people were looking for him for some reasons, that in his village and later in Libreville there had been problems, but I didn't really understand what was behind it all.
And then he told me he had to go to a class. He was being taught how to fight like Bruce Lee, so that when it came time for him to meet these assailants, he would be ready.
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