The Sea, Not Waving but Drowning, Vol. 8 Issue 1

Volume 8 Issue 1

ctglobalist.com

The Cape Town

Globalist U C T’s st ude n t int er nat ional af fairs m ag a z i ne

The Sea

Not Waving but Drowning The Cape Town Globalist

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Contents

Editor-in-Chief Amy Thornton Deputy Editor Chris Clark Content Editors Chantel Clark Anade Situma Ashleigh Furlong Alicia Chamaille Layout Editor Daniel Rautenbach Deputy Layout Editors Aimee Dyamond Julien Speyer CTG President Carissa Cupido Marketing Chantel Clark Finance Aimee Hare Contributors Rob Attwell Gregory Bakker Kimon de Greef Zarreen Kamalie Liz Maelene Sofia Monteiro Melissa Newham Ra’eesa Pather Kirsty Rice Gareth Smit Lori-Rae van Laren Tara Weber Chris van der Westhuyzen David Wilke

Appetisers

Theme

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15

News bites Tidbits you may have missed

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Global coversations

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Q&A with Dr. Kim Winter, Environmentalist

Armchair Globalist The Fiscal Cliff

News 10

Spacing Out

The NSRI in action

20 Perlemoen: Views from the Precipice

The other side of abalone poaching

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The Big Toxic Blue The sea and your health

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Troubled Waters

Senkaku vs. Diaoyu

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Mother of Pearl

A profile of the fantastic Dr. Sylvia Earle

Meteorites in Russia

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A System of Violence

Examining the Delhi rape trial

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An Inconvenient Trade

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Rousing the Dragon

The future Rhinos are facing Freedom of speech in China?

Contributions 14 Global21 Contributions from the

yale Globalist and london Globalist

Cover: James Ballance The Cape Town Globalist is published four times a year by students at the University of Cape Town. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Cape Town Globalist, the publication sponsors, the University of Cape Town, or Global21.

To contact the CTG, email ctglobalist@gmail.com

Science, Philosophy and Art 28

Shape Up or Ship Out

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Duty and Documentary

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A Coastal Caveat

Possibilities for sea-sustainable living

Does the end justify the means for documentary-makers How art teaches us about the sea

Curtain Call Songs of Freedom

The Cape Town Globalist

Guardians of the Sea

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Waving Goodbye to the Sea Pollution, dolphins and the Little Mermaid

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The Cape Town Globalist is a member of

Global21

1 NETWORK LINKING FUTURE WORLD LEADERS

Network of International Affairs Magazines 5 LANGUAGES www.global21online.org 5 CONTINENTS

11 UNIVERSITIES 245 000 STUDENTS

Yale University • University of Toronto • University of Sydney • Hebrew University • Institut de Sciences Politiques • London School of Economics • Peking University • University of Cape Town • University of South Australia • Oxford University • Ibmec University 4

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Editorial H

aving a penchant for puns, I thought the title of this edition was first-rate. The Sea: Not Waving but Drowning is actually meant to apply the tragedy of Stevie Smith’s poem to the plight of the seas. Forgive me, but I think it’s rather deep (pun intended) because maybe the sea is waving goodbye (intended, again).

When you think about the sea, it’s all beaches, waves, and sandcastles.

And when you think about the sea and Serious Stuff you’d see in a magazine like this? It’s ‘Save the Whales’ posters, oil-coated seals and Stevie Smith poems. Blah blah the same boring lesson we’ve heard before.

Not to be facetious, but if I’ve learnt anything in the stress-filled process of putting this magazine together, it’s that the hippies were right: we do need to save the whales. (And the dolphins, even if they are really annoying and/or self-governing and can get themselves out of the mess we made.)

Let me suggest why: The sea and its conservation present the biggest tragedy of commons in the world. It’s Game Theory 101. This is potentially the largest problem of collective action ever posed to our society. Ever.

We have the Earth’s largest free public resource – the sea – which is invaluable and should be used wisely for everyone to live happily ever after. To preserve the sea, we – the whole world – have to show restraint in using the resource. But humans are generally a mistrustful, greedy bunch who prefer to get ahead today at the expense of generations to come, just in case somebody else pips their profits tomorrow.

But let’s not preach, because that is boring. Instead, this edition aims at informing you about all the wondrous things to do with the sea. We here at the Cape are in a rather intimate relationship with the ocean. From the trendy coves of Clifton to penguin-packed Cape Point, all the way around to the mountain-adorned heights of Rooi Els, we are spoilt for choice. That’s why we decided to learn a little more about the watery counterpart that surrounds our peninsula so snugly.

To do this, this edition considers how the ocean impacts on human health, how humans impact on ocean health, what China is really up to and unlikely stories from the other side of abalone poaching. We take a gander at some land art; wonder about the ethics of documentary-making in light of a recent shark-attack; and toy with futuristic ideas like floating cities and where we’ll be when dry land fills up with people.

All in all, the threats facing the sea (and us) are mind-bogglingly enormous. We don’t want to depress you or make you feel guilty for flushing the loo too many times and eating sushi. Rather, the hope is that you will be so overcome by the sheer Awesomeness, Magnificence and General Radness of the sea that you will pat the tedious ‘Save the Whale’ hippie on the back, instead of kicking him in the shin.

It’s too easy to be apathetic, be a Real Person and care about the sea.

Amy Thornton

Editor-in-Chief

The Cape Town Globalist

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News bites An African Pope?

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation sent the world media into overdrive, as he was the first pope to resign in 600 years. Among the frontrunners for the top papal position are Italian Angelo Scola, Ghanaian Peter Turkson, and Canandian Marc Ouellet. If Turkson is elected not only will he be the first black Pope, but also the first African one. Catholicism is gaining popularity in Africa, with 18 million Catholics in Nigeria alone; a number that would no doubt increase if a black Pope were elected. What remains to be seen is whether a considerably conservative conclave, will vote for a black, African pope.

A Real Life Atlantis

The remains of what could possibly be the ancient continent of Mauritia have been discovered through the analysis of sand grains on the beaches of the island Mauritius. Scientists discovered zircon grains in the beach sand that are 660 million to 1,970 million years old. These zircons are very resistant to erosion and researchers propose that they were brought up to the surface by volcanic eruptions at the bottom of the ocean.

The theory is that Mauritia was separated from Madagascar and then buried under lava, causing the micro-continent to sink into the ocean depths.

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Harvesting the Sun Scientists have found a new way to harvest the sun’s energy. They have replaced a process using semiconductors with one in which gold nanorods can, in combination with other metals, convert sunlight’s energy into hydrogen ions.

These ions can be used to power a light bulb or charge a battery. The exciting part is that the nanorods corrode at a much slower rate than traditional semiconductors. The process is, however, not as efficient as the conventional methods and is more costly. Despite this, scientists are positive that they will be able to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of this new technology soon, paving the way for a new form of solar energy.

digits of

11 033

metres underwater is the deepest end of the sea, the Mariana Trench

362 million The sea’s surface area in square KM’s

2 2000

degrees celsius is the average temperature of the ocean kilometres is the length of the Great Barrier Reef - and can be seen from the Moon!

Photographs courtesy of Wikimedia commons

Outrage at the Oscars The 2013 Oscars have been dubbed “the meanest in history” as Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, (perhaps?) stooped for attention while attempting to provide biting quips on the glamorous celebrity contingent in attendance.

Critics, celebrities and the public alike have lambasted the host for his “sexist” and “racist” jokes.

From his performance entitled, “We Saw Your Boobs”, chronicling the history of naked actresses, to his joke about Jews in Hollywood, Macfarlane certainly garnered attention. The ratings for the show increased by a million viewers and not surprisingly, saw an increase in young male viewers.

Move Over Nessie

Richard Smith, a retired university lecturer, was cycling along the Thames when he saw what he at first thought was a log of wood. Upon closer inspection, he found it to be a 4ft (1.2m) long crocodile. Smith reportedly spoke to a man working at a shop on the banks on the Thames, who also claimed to have seen a crocodile, which had pulled a swan into the water. It remains unclear whether or not the sighted crocodile was in fact a 007 prop, as a local man stated to reassure the public. It is thought to have washed away from a nearby island, where it was once stored.

march 2013

appetisers appetisers

f THE DEEP

97

percent of our water is contained within the ocean

4000 3/4

number of coral reef species worldwide

of the world’s mega-cities are by the sea

A History of Violence Bystanders captured cellphone footage of a man later identified as Mido Macia, a taxi driver from Mozambique, being beaten by police officers. He was tied to a police van and dragged behind it, screaming and writhing in pain. Macia died of head injuries while in custody at the Daveyton Police Station. South Africans and the International community alike have met his death and brutal treatment at the hands of the South African police with disgust and outrage. This display of cruelty at the hands of authority comes at a time where current media coverage on the Oscar Pistorious case has identified South Africa as epitomising a culture of violence.

In a new marketing strategy, companies can now hire the thighs of Japanese women for advertisements. The requirements are simple – the women must be 18 or older, they have to have the bare skin between their knee-high socks and skirt or shorts showing for at least 8 hours a day and must post a picture of the advertisement on any of their social feeds to at least twenty friends.

This new marketing strategy was launched by Absolute Territory – which refers to the bare skin between sock and skirt – and already has over 1300 registered women with the numbers growing daily.

10 000

miles is what a Gray whale migrates each year

Statistics courtesy of Savethesea.org and EuroCBC.org

Kenya’s Election Concerns

A Thigh of Relief

More Problems for Pistorius On the Same-Sex Page Proposition 8 of 2008 in California is a ban on same-sex marriage under the argument that marriage is a societal means to cover up unwanted pregnancies and thus does not apply to bisexual couples. Recent polls show an increase of over 10% in support of same-sex marriage which now rests at 61% and opposition at 32%. This nationwide increase in support has been spurred on by President Obama’s promise in his second inaugural address to overturn bans on same-sex marriage. California is seen as only the start.

With millions of Kenyan voters going to the polls on the 4th of March, the international community has voiced concerns over the fact that two of the eight election candidates have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity – one of them, Uhuru Kenyatta, is a front runner in the polls. During Kenyan general elections five years ago, more than 1100 people were killed and at least 350 000 were displaced within Kenya’s borders. With a view to preventing a repeat of such high levels of violence, this year’s leading candidates have signed peace pledges. Still, many Kenyans seem to be preparing for the worst.

The Cape Town Globalist

As if the media furore around the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp wasn’t enough, another messy legal battle involving Oscar Pistorius has recently hit the headlines. The South African sprinter has filed a lawsuit against his neighbour for damages done four years ago when he was arrested and spent the night in prison for allegedly assaulting her. Already his legal fees are over R1 000 000 and this figure looks set to to skyrocket by the time his trail for premeditated murder starts in June.

ashleigh furlong, alicia chamaille & chantel clark 7

Q& A

appetisers

with

Dr. Kevin Winter

UCT Environmentalist Dr. Kevin Winter knows more than most when it comes to the relationship we have with the water all around us. Having spent the best part of 30 years looking at public involvement in the management of water resources, he shared some of his ideas at the TEDx ‘What if Africa?’ event in Stellenbosch last year. He tells Christopher Clark that while our oceanic problems may run deep, we are not at a tipping point just yet.

Judging from your résumé and profession, it surely goes without saying that you must have a pretty close relationship to the environment around you. How would you describe your relationship with the sea?

I

have been involved with water since I was a young kid. I grew up in a family of sailors and raced dinghies from a young age. I have also sailed keel boats up and down the west coast and in Table Bay. I know what it is like to be in a storm and I have huge respect for the sea. I have sailed in conditions when only the instruments give you some assurance that you are heading in the right direction; the rest is too wild to make much sense of. Wild nature is very confusing to human beings and their technologies are pretty frail against its power.

We have a long way to go to try to understand how we should treat the oceans and its resources as the global commons.

You spoke at TED’s What if Africa event in Stellenbosch about Cape Town’s waterways and the Peninsula Paddle. How did you get involved in this event, and why did you think it was a good thing to be part of?

I am a founder member of the Peninsula Paddle but largely by default. Two guys made an appointment to see me one day – one of whom was a past student (Thomas Cousins) and Tre8

vor Johnston. They wanted to know which rivers were best to use in order to paddle from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean – ie crossing the peninsula.

I liked their plan. When they left I knew I had to join them.

About 3 weeks later we did the first paddle. No one had done this before (or at least in recent history) and so it was good to get the media talking about the event. The Peninsula Paddle is now an annual event happening as close as possible to World Environment Day. It’s a citizen action exercise that brings attention to the river. It’s also a simple idea that gets people talking.

Why do you think it is important for Capetonians to better understand the water around them? What do projects like the Peninsula Paddle look to show or highlight and what are the goals going forward?

I think we are helping people, citizens and the City, to understand that we have got to deal with our river systems. To take them seriously. To show how they are linked to the oceans. To enable people to see that trash, oils, fluids etc eventually find their way into the oceans. But also that things can change.

The Peninsula Paddle is not only about improving the biophysical environment but also raising concerns about housing and living conditions in a divided city. Shacks backing onto canals and rivers are really unpleasant places to be. We want to record the stories of people who are struggling to deal with pollution in these canals.

I think a similar type of exercise to the Peninsula Paddle could be done. It is largely about finding creative ways of engaging the media and also in citizens having fun and finding it meaningful at the same time. There is a lot to do. The emphasis needs to be on food resources, depletion thereof and the extensive litter that is coming into the marine environment. In many ways all of this represents a human failure – a society that has failed the environment and all living creatures therein. We should deal with our failure along with our greed.

Our oceans are fast becoming an increasing draw for the Chinese (and as a result fish are being depleted), there are an increasing number of oceanic dead zones and other ‘green’ problems worldwide (such as in the Gulf of Mexico), while piracy continues to afflict the Gulf of Aden. In your opinion, have we reached an oceanic crisis point? What can we, as ‘normal’ Capetonians, do to help stop the rot? Is the world doing enough to reverse the various afflictions to its oceans, and its water more generally?

A crisis is not the tipping point. I don’t think we are there. I have seen too many examples where things have been turned around through the collective effort. It’s obviously much more complicated at an international level. We have a long way to go to try to understand how we should treat the oceans and its resources as the global commons. CTG

Do you think the various communities across Cape Town, however divided or removed from one another, can all benefit from a better un- Christopher Clark derstanding of the sea around them? And how is a third year student majoring in Media and could we bring about such an eventuality?

Writing and English march 2013

appetisers

The fiscal

cliff-hanger With the American economy teetering uncertainly, what is this fiscal cliff everyone is talking about? All shall be revealed by Sofia Monteiro.

W

e dig our nails into the proverbial armchair as we wait to see if ‘frenemies’ Republicans and Democrats can reach some kind of compromise to avoid a punishing default setting, which would push the USA into back into recession.

What is the fiscal cliff? It is the set of automatic tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts (called “sequesters”) that would be imposed on the economy unless US politicians were able to display a teenager’s level of maturity and reach a compromise on how to address the monumental federal debt.

The start of 2013 signalled the expiration of the Bush era tax breaks, last year’s temporary pay relief due to recession, and certain tax breaks for businesses. This was further compounded as taxes related to the President’s new health care law were due to begin. The “sequester” originates with the “debt ceiling” crisis of 2011: In order to avoid defaulting on its colossal debt, the government agreed to $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over ten years, which would begin on January 1, 2013.

Let’s take a look at the build-up to the fiscal cliff that was scheduled for 1 January 2013, starting at four weeks to the cliff: America was headed towards the catastrophic economic scenario that was ironically devised by them in the first place. “Why?” I hear you ask. Well, US politicians have a history of coming to an impasse when any kind of negotiations are required, as was evident in the debt-ceiling crisis.

It was this reasoning that led Congress to create the ticking clock in the form of the fiscal cliff – to compel them to negotiate spending cuts.

That said, hope for adequate negotiations was naïve. Proposals offered by both sides were fundamentally disagreeable to each other. However, that is what one might expect.

Both sides take a strong position initially from which to make concessions. In this case though, the negotiations did not take off. Both sides put a couple of numbers on paper, which they pushed across the table while avoiding eye contact. Republicans refused to cut military spending and the democrats refused to cut welfare spending.

Thirteen days until the fiscal cliff: The President’s proposal stated that taxes would be raised on incomes of $400, 000 per year and up (i.e. taxing the wealthy). Over the next ten years, there would be $4 trillion in savings, a quarter of which would come from tax hikes. Importantly, half of the spending cuts would come from defence, a traditional Republican pet.

The Republican’s responding proposal included $600 bil-

The Cape Town Globalist

lion through health savings (reflective of their distaste for so-called Obama Care – the national health care proposal) and $800 billion through tax reform. While half of the Democrats’ spending cuts would come from defence, the Republican cuts would come from domestic spending and not cut defence at all. The Republican proposal, perhaps unsurprisingly, left the tax rates unchanged for the top 2% of earners. The Republican speaker of the House John Boehner denounced raising tax rates as “unacceptable”.

One (nail-biting) day until the fiscal cliff: After precipitously hanging from the metaphorical cliff, the Senate approved the last-minute deal. New higher tax rates would begin for those Americans earning more than $400, 000 per year. In other words, the Democrats won.

The important part was that the government avoided going over the fiscal cliff and rescued the economy, right? No. The deal entailed delaying across the board spending cuts for two months only. A new fiscal cliff was looming, albeit a few kilometres away again.

Ater hanging from the metaphorical cliff, the Senate approved the last-minute deal.

So with the threat of the fiscal cliff only temporarily removed, what may we expect from negotiations as the new fiscal cliff of March 1, 2013 beckons? [At the time of writing, negotiations were underway]. This depends largely on the little faith citizens have in the capacity of their politicians to reach an agreement that is in the nation’s interests rather than those of short-sighted political agendas.

According to Ron Paul “The country remains divisive because there is no more loot to [divide]”. Hard choices need to be made with regards to government spending before inaction destabilises the economy further, bringing with it global repercussions.

Greece is still a harsh outcome that nobody wants for the US economy. It’s important to remember why budget cuts were needed considering they have negative consequences for many Americans benefitting under the status quo. Federal debt is a record $12.2 trillion, or 76% of GDP. Although this is still significantly below Greece’s 153%, fiscal debt is in no way turning away from the path that could lead to Greece in just a decade. Since hiking taxes alone will not put the US on a stable debt trajectory, perhaps Americans should embrace the cuts and drive over the fiscal cliff, Thelma and Louise style. CTG

SOFIA MONTEIRO is an Honours student specialising in Economics.

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news

Spacing Out MELISSA NEWHAM reports on the economics, the science, and the story behind the meteor that crashed into the Earth’s surface this February.

O

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

melissa newham

is an Honours student in Economics

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n February 15th 2013 dashboard cameras in Russia captured a scene that could have come from a Hollywood end-of-the-world movie: a flaming meteor streaking across the sky and exploding over central Russia, injuring some 1 000 people, shattering windows, setting off car alarms - and creating a new economic opportunity for locals, the meteorite trade.

Video-documentation of the spectacle and the flurry of online clips that quickly spread from social networks to news sites, are largely thanks to dangerous driving conditions in Russia. The hazardous roads have encouraged drivers to set up dashboard cameras to provide evidence after a road accident. Some of the videos contain strong Russian language, revealing the fear and bewilderment of observers.

A meteorite is a meteoroid - a solid piece of debris from an asteroid or comet in outer space - that survives impact with the Earth’s surface. Numerous meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere each day, however only the largest ones make it to the surface to become meteorites.

When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere cause the body to heat up and emit light. Very bright meteors are known as fireballs. Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are travelling much faster than the speed of sound.

According to NASA the fireball that exploded over Russia weighed between 7 000 and 10 000 tons when it entered the atmosphere over Alaska. It measured roughly 16 meters across, and was travelling at an estimated 30 km per second when it reached Earth.

The meteorite that is believed to have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs is estimated to have been 10 kilometres wide. According to scientists the meteorite smashed into the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico 65 million years ago causing global forest fires, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and an ‘impact winter’ in which dust blocked out sunlight for decades or centuries.

The meteor that exploded over Russia has been identified as a chrondite; one of the most common composition types. Chondrites are usually about 4.55 billion years old and are believed to represent material from the asteroid belt that did not form into larger bodies.

As meteorites are named after the places where they are found, February’s meteroites will be dubbed the Chebarkul Meteorites says Prof. Grokhovsky, professor at Ural Federal University and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Committee.

The meteorite crash has started an unregulated and haphazard ‘meteorite rush’ around the industrial city of Chely-

abinsk, 1 500 km east of Moscow, with a black market for meteorites developing.

Groups of people have been combing through the snow and ice in the hopes of striking it rich, and the internet has rapidly filled up with advertisements from eager collectors hoping to sell their finds. “The price is hard to say yet ... The fewer meteorites that are recovered, the higher their price,” said Dmitry Kachkalin, a member of the Russian Society of Amateur Meteorite Lovers.

The government is concerned that people are going to sell the space rocks fraudulently. Under Russian law a person can gain legal title to a meteorite, but only if it is registered with the authorities and submitted to a laboratory for scientific tests. The laboratory will charge a fee of 20 percent of the estimated value of the object for certification.

The black market for meteorites is not unique to Russia The black market for meteorites is not unique to Russia.

In Saharan countries, especially in Morocco, the informal meteorite trade gained popularity as locals and nomads became aware of the profitability of finding and selling the sought-after rocks. While some scientists are frustrated by the illegal trade, others commend the rise in commercial meteorite collection as it has unearthed meteorites that may never have been found otherwise.

In the case of Russia, scientists have complained that the scramble for meteorites has resulted in a lack of coordinated effort and scientific oversight in the collection of specimens from the ‘once in a century’ event.

In the aftermath of the impact Russian politicians have called for a global effort to develop early warning systems for asteroids and meteorites that pose a threat to Earth.

Though confronting one of the most advanced missile detection systems in the world, experts from the Russian Nuclear Forces Project claim that, in spite of the object’s size, early warning radars “didn’t have a chance” because they were not designed to detect foreign objects approaching from outer space.

Taking up the call for an early warning system is a team of astronomers at the University of Hawaii working on the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (or ATLAS). The system is expected to be completed in 2015 and will consist of eight small telescopes, each equipped with high resolution cameras. ATLAS will provide a one week warning for 45 meter meteors that could wipe out a city, and a three week warning for 137 meter meteors capable of destructing an entire country. CTG

march 2013

news

A System of Violence A violent act shocked the nation of India into a series of protests demanding support for the victims of rape and the punishment of those who perpetrate it. Ra’eesa Pather reports on the actions taken after the events and questions the reaction of South Africans in the similar case of Anene Booysen.

T

he trial has begun and all five suspects have pleaded not guilty to the gang-rape of a young Indian student, who later died due to injuries sustained in the ordeal. Although it has become widely known as the ‘Delhi Rape’, the horrific incident has quaked far beyond India’s borders. The case has drawn global attention and protestors and activists alike have washed through the streets of India in abhorrence at the violence of the rape and existing attitudes towards women.

It started with an evening movie and then a bus ride home. Jyoti Singh Pandey travelled with a male friend who was hit multiple times with a steel pole after he attempted to save her from their attackers. She was raped first by the men, then with the pole, until she and her friend were discharged from the bus naked and bleeding.

The story jolted the Indian nation, and sparked nationwide protest. Students lobbied on campuses while women’s rights groups picketed outside government buildings.

The viciousness of the assault and the young girl’s untimely death has become a symbol of both the historical suffocating silence of Indian women and their need to finally speak out.

The protests have also had a profound impact on the upper echelons of Indian society. Earlier this year the Indian Cabinet proposed to reform rape laws and re-define the legal meaning of rape itself. Previously, rape was legally limited to the act of “penetration”. Legislative branches have since been willing to broaden this description. Marital rape has also been included as a criminal offence, and President Pranab Mukherjee has signed an ordinance that allows the death penalty in instances where the victim has been left in a “persistent vegetative state”.

Although the death penalty is rarely used in India, the government’s decision to include capital punishment is a response to activists demanding that the five accused suspects be punished by death. The reform is all happening within six months. Some applaud the Indian government for recognising and seeking to rectify issues within the legislative system; others state that capital punishment is not a solution. It also remains unclear as to whether these laws will protect women from the embedded attitudes that underlie rape.

Gender dynamics remain skewed, even today. While men and women alike have pounded the streets of Delhi in fury, there have been questionable statements made by

The Cape Town Globalist

notable members of Indian society. Manohar Lal Sharma, the defendants’ lawyer, claimed “respected” ladies do not get raped. Asaram Bapu, a popular Indian guru, made headlines when he stated that had the victim prayed to God and negotiated with her attackers she would not have been harmed. The response to such statements can be seen in a poem written by an angered observer:

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

“I’m sick of the question – How was she dressed?

Show me the man slumped over the counter with a bullet in his head Dressed like someone who deserves to be dead.”

The ‘Delhi Rape’ has a unique resonance in South Africa because of the gang-rape, mutilation, and death of Anene Booysen in Bredasdorp in February.

Her death became a symbol of the suffocating silence of Indian women Despite the similarity of the brutality in the two cases, headlines claim that South Africans are immune to the horrors of rape because of its frequent occurrence. Local statistics show that one in every three South African women are victims of rape. While India has marched through the streets, South Africans have reacted dissimilarly. Small crowds gathered at key events such as Booysen’s funeral and outside the court during the trials of her attackers, but aside from that the South African reaction is dwarfed by India’s.

Women’s rights groups have suggested that the apathy of South African citizens is a reflection of government attitudes and responses. Despite his statements of outrage against violence towards women, President Jacob Zuma was conspicuously absent at Booysen’s funeral; while both the Indian Prime Minister and the President of the ruling party were present during the process of mourning for Pandey.

More importantly, the South African ruling party has done little to eradicate the threat of violence facing South African women and children. If death via rape is the whip needed to lash out in action, then perhaps we should all take heed and learn from the anger of India. CTG

RA’EESA PATHER

is an Honours student specialising in Media Theory and Practice.

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news

An Inconvenient Trade

What would it mean for rhinos if rhino poaching was legal? David Wilke looks at unconventional solutions for a species on the brink

T

he quagga was a sub-species of the zebra with stripes that faded below the neck. This unusual animal, once found in great numbers in grassy areas of Southern Africa, went extinct in 1880 due to a demand for its meat as well as the need to preserve the vegetation which it fed on for domestic farm animals.

If we are not careful, the majestic African rhino, though for different reasons, could follow the same sad path. At the time of writing, 102 rhinos have been brutally killed in South Africa since 1 January 2013. This number is already almost one sixth of the 668 rhinos murdered in 2012.

Rhinos are killed for their horns which are used in Chinese medicines because the ground horn is believed to have medicinal properties. Although these properties have never been scientifically proven, the demand for horns persists. Rhino horns are made of keratin which is a key structural component in human nails and hair.

On the 24th of January 2013 a declaration was signed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam which will ban the import of any rhino specimens. Rhino poaching will also be high on the agenda at the upcoming CITES meeting to be held in March 2013.

In China, ground rhino horn is believed to have medicinal properties.

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

David Wilke

is a first-year student majoring in English and Media and Writing.

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CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is an agreement between international governments to ensure that the survival of plants and animals is not threatened when specimens enter a foreign market as trade commodities.

The 16th meeting of the convention will take place from the 3rd – 14th March 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The current rhino poaching situation will be high on the agenda at the meeting. This will be a crucial step to hinder the killing of rhinos and illegal trade in rhino horns. In a document released by CITES, detailing high priority topics to be covered in the meeting, it is stated that “Illegal trade in rhinoceros horn continues to be one of the most structured criminal activities faced by CITES”.

A few noteworthy topics at the CITES meeting with re-

gards to rhino include: the high rate at which rhinos are being poached in South Africa despite the many counterbeing used; the many trade routes being used between Africa and Asia by organised criminal networks; the high demand in Vietnam for rhino; the legislation and prosecution of those involved in illegal rhino trade; and the use of new technologies such as DNA databases.

But CITES can only do so much when it comes to controlling the trade of rhino horn. CITES is involved itself in legal trade, and the real threat to endangered species lies in illegal underground markets. Many conservationists believe that the trade of rhino horns should be legalised (rhino horns can be safely and painlessly removed from live rhino and grow back over the course of a few years) because by doing this it will be far easier to control and restrict imports and exports.

Some argue that CITES is at least partially to blame for the current situation – the ban on trade that they previously introduced has contributed to the huge underground network of organised crime and illegal activity that is currently ravaging South Africa’s national parks. This black market incentive will be mitigated by legalisation. Demand by the Asian market will be met and money earned from this trade can go towards conservation efforts. The value of rhino horn will decrease, cutting financial temptation to poach.

Yet as cheery as this sounds, not everyone is jumping on the legalisation bandwagon. After all, the current ban is failing, so how will we manage to control the legalisation of the trade without laundering, corruption and so on occurring?

Some also argue that there is no way of predicting just what heights the demand for horn might reach. It is doubted whether the current rhino population would be large enough to sustain a legalised trade. On the other hand, it is estimated that at the current rate of demand, existing stockpiled supplies of horn could saturate the market for up to ten years.

Whatever direction is taken going forward, decisive actions must be made sooner rather than later. At present we are losing this war, and if the rhino does become the next quagga, we will only have ourselves to blame. CTG

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news

Rousing the Dragon Zarreen kamalie looks at the recent protests in China concerning freedom of speech and debates whether this could be the beginning of a new and freer era in Chinese history.

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sk anyone to consider the phrase ‘freedom of speech’, and you can almost be certain that thoughts of ‘democracy’, ‘basic human rights’ and ‘protests’ come to mind. Ask those same people about China, and instead they would probably associate it with lack of freedom of speech, though this may change as the Chinese population grows frustrated with their government and its harsh censorship laws.

After a New Year’s editorial in one of China’s most influential and popular newspapers, Southern Weekly, was extensively edited by Guangdong’s propaganda chief, Tuo Zhen, journalists and other protesters took to the streets.

As With public protests boldly taking place in a country that is considered the second most powerful nation in the world, one has to wonder just how long the Chinese Communist Party government will be able to hold on to its high standard of censorship.

Journalists, scholars and other angered civilians with placards in their hands bearing phrases such as “freedom of speech is not a crime” and “Chinese people want freedom” echo the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. While many are relieved that these protests did not follow in the bloody footsteps of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, one cannot help but wonder how these protests will make a difference at this point.

For years now, there have been democratic rumblings in the country which has traditionally come down hard on such civilian efforts. However, it appears the world has now entered a new era where public opinion can either make or break a state. This speaks in particular to the Arab Spring of 2011, a multinational revolution brought upon

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by self-determined freedom of expression. An important development in this regard is China’s recent change in leadership last December and whether the new leadership intends on working with or against its opinionated public.

January’s protest was a major challenge to President Xi Jinping and his fellow statesmen. Their response to these calls for freedom of speech could determine not only their own political futures, but the political future of China itself. The Communist Party has always taken a hard and brutal stance, but in this changing age, if leadership is too brittle, it may break. All eyes are on President Jinping as he strives for balance in this regard. The party is concerned that by ‘giving in a pinky, they’ll lose their whole arm’. One of the demands of the protesting public is that Guangdong’s propaganda chief Tuo Zhen step down, as it is they believed he is undermining the province’s position as a leader in economic growth and political reform.

The Chinese has set up an internet censorship programme dubbed ‘the Great Firewall’ As China is a developmental state, its governmentplays a key role in driving its economy. Other states that followed the Developmental State model include South Korea and Taiwan. History teaches that such authoritarian regimes sacrificing civil rights for economic growth, as South Korea and China have done, often sow the seeds for their own downfall. Such states create their own undoing by economically uplifting their populace to the degree that they push back against the ruthless state apparatus and demand civil rights. South Korea is one example of this; is this process beginning in China?

Over centuries we have seen various forms of government, from monarchies to totalitarian states, disintegrate through the power of civil society. In an Internet-savvy globalised world, who is to say that freedom of speech will not be won in China? These trends can be seen through the popular microblogs which have been set up

by Chinese celebrities, such as Yao Chen, who all share a common idea about their rights. This is despite the Chinese government’s best attempts at establishing a highly advanced internet censorship programme dubbed ‘the Great Firewall ’.

It’s naive to think change will happen anytime soon, but China’s new set of leaders come from a different generation and that could mean a different mindset. Of course as optimistic as one would like to be, President Jinping has already been caught mimicking his predecessor Hu Jintao by talking about the need for ‘stability’. If this is any indication of the direction the Communist Party intends on taking, then the Southern Weekly protests against rights violations are sure to be the start of many. It remains to be seen if the branch will bend or break. CTG

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

ZARREEN KAMALIE

is a first-year student majoring in Politics, Social Anthropology and French.

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Global 21

African Security & External: Role of a newcomer, China

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Susan Sebatindira

is a student at LSE and writes for the London Globalist

hina’s role in Africa is rapidly becoming one of the most hotly-talked about topics within international affairs. It would then be easy to see how this debate would spill over to concern what effect China’s growing economic engagement in Africa will have on the continent’s myriad of security issues and concerns. I had the pleasure of attending the public lecture entitled, ‘African Security & External Influence: exploring the role of a newcomer, China’ held by the LSE. The two main lecturers were Bonnie Ayodele, a lecturer at the University of Ado Ekiti, Nigeria and Zhongying Pang, a professor at Renmin University of China, with Chris Alden, LSE’s resident expert on Africa-Asia relations, overseeing the talk. It proved interesting and illuminating listening to experts directly from China and Africa speak on the relationship between the emerging power and continent.

Both lecturers had an overwhelmingly positive outlook on China’s engagement with Africa. Ayodele chose to redefine China, not as a newcomer but as ‘game-changer’, and highlighted that

this conversation should not be limited to plainly security issues as we would have more to learn from a holistic approach that includes China’s investment strategy. It is through this that we can answer the question of whether China’s sudden aggressive engagement is premised on assisting the continent’s security and development challenges. These range from armed conflicts, porous borders, ethno-religious extremism, infrastructural challenges and HIV/ AIDS, to name a few.

Both agree that China and Africa hold shared values of non-intervention and sovereignty, not to mention that both are members of the Global South and have shared humiliating memories of colonialism and foreign imposition. Thus, following from that logic, China’s foreign policy doctrine of non-interference suits African interests well; though questions are raised over China’s apparent indifference to the constitutional and human rights abuses of the countries it does business with. G21

Weighing the Complexities of the Aid Freeze

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Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

Emma Goldberg is in Saybrook College, Yale University. She writes for the Yale Globalist

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n early January, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda denounced the unfairness of the Western world. He evoked as an example the recent trend of foreign aid suspension due to allegations that Rwanda has been supporting M23 rebels in the Congo.

In a United Nationscommissioned report, experts accused Rwandan military officials of equipping, training, and commanding the brutal M23 forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and although Kagame rejected the allegations, several European States joined the United States in freezing aid to Rwanda.

On the one hand, the use of aid as a political tool is troubling. Rwanda is one of the world’s poorest countries. The foreign aid Rwanda has received has promoted enormous economic growth, but has also unfortunately fostered dependence—today, Rwanda relies on donors for over 40% of its national budget. When Kagame refers to Western “unfairness,” he is identifying the cruelty of a system that allows the West to

assert its moral authority over Rwandan leaders, stripping them of their sovereign autonomy.

Yet on the other hand, aid is one of the more necessary—and moral—political tools used by America. The M23 force that Rwanda has actively supported has raped scores of women, massacred civilian populations, and committed other brutal war crimes during the rebels’ occupation of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Because of foreign aid, the US can leverage its power to adopt a firm stance against Rwandan support of the M23.

Unfortunately, the regime authorities are not really the ones suffering under the current aid freeze. Kagame himself recognized that the aid freeze has taken a large toll on low-income communities in stating, “By cutting aid, they are not punishing the leaders but the poor people who can’t afford to take back their children to school.” G21

march 2013

THE SEA

news

Not Waving but Drowning Guardians of the Sea

The Big Toxic Blue

images & text by gareth smit

by aimee dyamond

Perlemoen: Views from the Precipice by kimon de greef

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Troubled Waters by rob atwell

Mother of Pearl by amber kriel 15

GUARDIANS OF THE SEA

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images & text by march 2013 gareth smit

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he South African coastline is a treacherous environment. Many have succumbed to the rough seas, freezing temperatures and inquisitive wildlife. Yet, South Africa has no coastguard patrolling our seas.

While such a service would primarily be involved in law enforcement, coastguards the world over play a vital role in responding to emergencies at sea. Aside from land based lifeguards and Shark-spotters who gaze at the sea from afar, one’s chance of survival in an emergency off the coast of the South Africa lies in the hands of 980 highly trained volunteers who together form the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI).

At the Table Bay station at the V&A Waterfront, Coxswain Ian Gross makes some final remarks to Bravo crew before the 50 ft. Spirit of Vodacom, Rescue 3, is taken out to sea. Every crew member including Gross is a volunteer. They are on call every two weeks, and have to be able to be at the station within 10min from receiving a call-out. These are engineers, business owners and sales consultants - ordinary people with an extraordinary appetite for adventure and a calling to save lives.

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As the boat cradles to dock at the base after a long afternoon of training, the team receives a call-out. A charter boat has had a mechanic failure off the coast of Clifton and needs to be towed. The crew jumps into action, fighting the speedily setting sun. A few hours later both vessels are safely returned to port.

Thousands of South Africans owe their livelihood to the sea, and our coastline is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. It seems unimaginable to think that the state does not have a dedicated means of responding to emergencies at sea. Privately funded through donations and corporate sponsorship, the NSRI is playing a vital role in saving lives at sea. The important work of these individuals who volunteer to meet a growing need in South African waters is nothing short of inspirational. CTG

The Cape Town Globalist

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not waving but drowning

Perlemoen: Views from the Precipice Kimon de Greef delves deep into the circumstances that drive Hangberg’s youth into the illegal world of abalone poaching.

“I

can tell by the shoes,” the policeman told me. “The expensive shoes are always a giveaway. I tell the guys every time—you look so bloody obvious, man—but what do you think they care? They don’t give a shiat.”

We were standing on an enclosed balcony in Cape Town harbour, overlooking a busy quay with Japanese fishing vessels moored beside it, chipped enamel paint glinting in the sun.

“Those guys never think of the consequences. It’s about easy money and living a party lifestyle: dive, get paid, and blow it on drugs, women, expensive clothes … then go work again when the cash runs out.” He stubbed his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and walked back to the adjoining room. “People in Hangberg are not poaching perlemoen (abalone) for survival. You’ll see them buying flat screen TV’s and putting soundsystems in their cars, but living in a shack … they’re after getting rich and flaunting it, and that’s that.”

the criminal economy has powerful, entrenched interests accounting for its strthe criminal economy has powerful, entrenched interests accounting for its street value of over R1000 / kg

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Two weeks later I was sitting in the front yard of an apartment in Hangberg. My host—a self-confessed poacher— handed me a mug of tea. Three pairs of expensive shoes sauntered into view. I greeted the boys and they mumbled perfunctory replies before returning to their own conversations. One wore a woman’s silver wristwatch halfway up his arm, an incongruous accessory beside his tight dreadlocks and tattooed hands. I thought of the policeman’s words.

But Jonathan* gave me a different perspective. Seated on a battered couch in his small lounge, the perlemoen diver listed some of the home renovations his illicit revenue stream had paid for.

“We had no running water up here on the slopes before … then I built a bathroom. My family has a proper toilet now. We don’t need to dig holes in the ground.” He pointed to the rain-streaked window and continued. “This room doesn’t leak anymore. And since I put this pane in I’ve got the best sea view.” I stood and looked past lopsided shacks to the mist-shrouded bay and the ridges of Chapman’s Peak Drive beyond.

“I wanted to buy a car,” Jonathan explained, “but decided to spend the money on my home instead, make it better for the wife and kids, you know? I’m saving for a car again … but living from day to day is expensive, my broe!”

Jonathan earns between R200 and R250 per kilogram of abalone he harvests, potentially netting over R10 000 profitin a single night. He works aboard a high-powered rubber duck along with a second diver, a skipper, and a deck assistant. His team targets reefs right around the Cape Peninsula, focusing on Robben Island in particular for its abundant stocks. He pays a small team of carriers

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not waving but drowning to deliver his catch to Hangberg from a remote drop-off point outside the bay. This single diving operation directly employs between ten and twelve men.

At least five poaching groups currently operate in Hangberg, representing more than 250 individuals and accounting, they say, for illegal harvests on the order of 50 tons of abalone a year. (To put this figure in perspective, the legal commercial abalone quota for the whole country was 150 tons in 2012.)

From a conservation or fisheries management perspective this is awful news: South Africa’s abalone stocks are on the brink of commercial extinction following more than two decades of rampant poaching, and cannot sustain further depletion. The poaching is fuelled by high demand in the Far East, where abalone is considered both a delicacy and status symbol, accounting for its street value of over R1000 / kg.

Essentially a giant sea snail—adults reach a maximum shell length of 18 cm—abalone grows far too slowly to sustainably satiate this market. A highly organized criminal network, unconstrained by the quota restrictions and minimum size limits that apply in the legal market, has evolved to meet the demand.

Syndicated abalone poaching began on the Overberg coast, gaining a foothold in impoverished fishing communities like Hawston and Gansbaai by offering residents an opportunity to prosper from the sea. Now, it has become firmly established in Hangberg, with focus shifting towards the Cape Peninsula after stock collapse—and improved policing—in former poaching hotspots.

Local law enforcement officials are concerned: besides its detrimental impacts on resources, illegal abalone harvesting is frequently accompanied by turf wars, drug peddling, and other undesirable by-products of the black market.

But in Hangberg, like fishing communities elsewhere, poaching has also started performing a range of important social and economic functions, filling a void left by the restructuring of the formal fisheries sector and posing challenges to those hoping to bring the plunder to an end.

“The government calls us criminals but offers no alternatives. We are men of the sea; we poach abalone because we have no legal access,” Jonathan tells me. Fisheries managers argue that resources are too depleted to sustain additional harvesting effort—but there are shoes to buy and bathrooms to build in Hangberg, and poaching continues.

Meanwhile, large commercial companies still receive quotas for abalone and other lucrative species like rock lobster, a fact poachers are quick to point out. Despite concerted attempts to reform South Africa’s fisheries sector since apartheid, impoverished fishing communities continue to feel overlooked. This sense of injustice, coupled with endemic poverty, makes them fertile breeding grounds for illegal activity.

The government’s latest attempt to remedy the situation is a new small-scale fisheries policy that aims to bring improved social justice and economic development to disadvantaged fishing communities. Authorities hope this will diminish the appeal of illegal harvesting. But the criminal economy has powerful, entrenched interests, and the new policy will not be successful unless it addresses the root socio-economic problems that make abalone poaching an attractive—and lucrative—livelihood strategy.

I handed theempty mug back to my host in the yard. We sat in silence for a time, watching passers-by on the street, and then he turned towards me.

“I don’t consider myself a poacher, you know,” he said.

“I’m a pirate.” CTG

The Cape Town Globalist

Kimon de Greef

is a Masters student in Conservation Biology

21

not waving but drowning songs of freedom

THE BIG

TOXIC BLUE

Aimee Dyamond considers to what extent the life-giving sea is becoming like a mother that eats its own offspring, and whether it is too late to save her from herself.

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n her 2009 TED Prize speech, marine scientist Sylvia Earle stood at the podium, appealing to humanity on behalf of the planet’s endangered oceans.

“Now is the time,” she declared after an earnest and heartfelt address.

Earle’s words of caution could not have been more timely.

Our oceans are becoming toxic. Dead zones are increasing in size and number each year. These ghostly anaerobic waste-waters, consequences of industrial pollution and agricultural runoff, are without sufficient oxygen to support marine life.

The sea’s health is at risk, like an artery constricted by too many fats

Images courtesy of wikimedia commons

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Increased chemical content in the water leads to hypoxic (oxygen-poor) conditions, stimulating the growth of algae.

Once the algae die and begin to decompose, they are consumed by bacteria on the sea floor and the water is depleted of oxygen. The process is called eutrophication, and it is killing international coastlines.

The Gulf of Mexico is now a sprawling dead zone characterised by algal blooms and brown, dish-water coastlines.

Fishing boats are forced to trawl further and further out looking for catch, impacting on productivity and profits.

Expired crustaceans, molluscs and other wildlife wash up on North American beaches, a chilling sign of man’s disruption of the ocean’s fragile ecosystems.

American farmers spray some 55 million tons of fertiliser onto their cropland, a large proportion of this hazardous chemical runoff washes straight into the Mississippi watershed. The effects of this agricultural overspill are disastrous. Nitrogen and phosphorous have seeped into the

Mississippi river mouth and formed a New Jersey-sized dead zone, the largest of its kind on the planet.

Fossil fuel fallout from nearby power plants, emissions from land and marine vehicles, industrial waste and sewage are aquatic hazards that further the proliferation of dead zones. “The number [of dead zones] has nearly doubled every decade since the 1960s,” said Dr Robert Diaz, oceanographer at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Diaz has predicted the world’s dead zones to double in the next decade. In fact, the most recent decade has shown significantly more growth than Diaz expected: between 2004 and 2008, the number of reported dead zones rose from 146 to 405 globally. Over a period of just four years, the 177 % increase is alarming.

In 1996, when dead zone research was still fairly uncultivated, journalist Mark Schleifstein won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his series on the global fisheries crisis. Even then, his findings on dead zones pointed to an obvious solution: devise farming methods that require fewer fertilisers. It suggest that farmers reduce usage of fertilisers regardless of market pressure to increase production.

Over a decade later, in 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a US federal group, devised a strategy to tackle the problem with insurgent force. The plan was to reduce the size of the Gulf zone by over 75% in time for 2015. An ambitious project, but an urgent one nonetheless.

Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, believes that rising nutrient levels in coastal waters are an imminent threat to marine ecosystems. “Dead zones are now a key stressor in coastal waters,” Lubchenco told the San Francisco Chronicle. She claims that reducing the use of fertilisers, protecting water sources from sewage spills and planting benign vegetation can reverse the damaging effects of chemical nutrients and reviving dead

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not waving but drowning

Left: The remains of an albatross chick is a stark reminder of the damaging effects of marine waste.

Left: Fertilisers carried by agricultural runoff flow into the ocean and create dead zones.

zones.

“We’re poisoning the planet’s circulatory system,” Earle continued in her TED address. Clogged oceans are indeed as noxious as they sound. The sea’s health is at risk, like an artery constricted by too many saturated fats. And then there’s what is infamously known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex of plastic waste floating in the North Pacific. This gyre of flotsam is its own archipelago estimated to be twice the size of Texas.

Marine organisms are not the only ones affected by toxic seas. Human health may also be compromised by the dwindling state of our oceans. The emergence of the tropical Vibrio bacteria as far north as the Baltic Sea is an anomaly that presents further concerning evidence of global warming. Nursing babies are at risk of contamination through their mothers’ breast milk, which can accumulate pesticides, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Aside from its cancer association, the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) toxin has harmful effects on reproduction and may even lead to infants becoming intersex.

High levels of POPs in Inuit breast milk were first recorded at Quebec’s Laval University in the 1980s. The study found that ingestion of POPs in the traditional Inuit diet of fish and fatty marine mammals combined with a 23-month lactation period meant easy transmission of the toxins,

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both to foetuses in utero and to infants via breast milk.

The United Nations Environment Programme has since warned against POPs, calling for “urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these chemicals.”

Organisations, corporates and governments often wax lyrical about the necessity of ‘greenness’. As long as it’s green, it’s good. Less obviously, green represents our guilt: it’s the colour of apology. But without the big blue, says Earle, there is no green. By her logic, blue is to green as water is to life. So where do we go from here?

Can infrastructure be redesigned to relieve our coastlines of further environmental impact? Can revised laws and regulations really make a difference? From a measured distance, the picture appears bleak, yet the potential for global dialogue and change is cosmic.

There’s a lot of rethinking to be done between now and the EPA’s 2015 goal if we are to reduce the size of the Gulf dead zone, restore order to marine ecosystems, make seafood safe again and reduce agricultural runoff. Let’s start with communality and citizenship. We all need to concern ourselves with preserving the blue for the sake of the green.

Not just policy-makers, scientists, businesspeople and the usual important types. Citizens, land-owners, mothers, fathers, everyone.

As Sylvia Earle said, there is time, but not a lot. The time to act is now. CTG

AIMEE DYAMOND is an Honours student specialising in Media Theory and Practice.

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Troubled Waters:

Senkaku versus Diaoyu A small, isolated and uninhabited cluster of rocks have become hotly contested property between Japan and China. Rob Attwell investigates what might be lurking beneath the surface

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n early February, the Japanese government accused the Chinese navy of “locking onto” a Japanese vessel near the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. The term, locking on, refers to the military practice of using radar to target an enemy for attack. China denied these allegations on 9 February, referring to them as “hyped up” and dismissing them as “false information.”

The alleged targeting of a Japanese vessel by the Chinese is the latest event in an escalating territorial dispute between the two nations. The source of the tension is a small collection of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, located roughly between Ishigaki, the southernmost inhabited of the Japanese islands, and Taiwan. The islands are referred to as the Senkakus by the Japanese and the Diaoyus by the Chinese.

In September 2012, the Japanese government purchased the islands from its private owners. The move sparked a massive outpouring of anti-Japanese sentiment in China which culminated in protests and attacks on Japanese businesses and individuals. Since then, both countries have increased their military presence in the East China Sea. The presence of natural gas deposits has added a further economic incentive for both countries to claim sovereignty.

Commentators on both sides, as well as in the Western media, are concerned that the conflict may lead to war in East Asia. Professor Hugh White, of the Australian National University said “this is how wars usually start: with a steadily escalating stand-off over something intrinsically worthless. So don't be too surprised if the US and Japan go to war with China next year over the uninhabited rocks that Japan calls the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu islands. And don't assume the war would be contained and short.”

The premise is that the USA, along with Japan, is actively trying to halt Chinese economic growth and undermine Chinese political influence in East and South East Asia

Images courtesy of wikimedia commons

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If Japan and China go to war, the USA is legally obliged by its post-Second World War treaties to enter the fray on the Japanese side. The USA has been emphasizing the need for cooler heads to prevail and for both sides to come to the negotiating table. Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said at the time that the US took no sides on the sovereignty dispute but would “oppose any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration.”

China, however, viewed Clinton’s statement as a hawkish American attempt to contain Chinese regional ambitions.

Hong Lei, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, described Clinton’s statement as “ignorant of the facts and indiscriminate of right and wrong.” The idea of contain-

ment has become popular in Chinese political discourse.

The premise is that the USA, along with Japan, is actively trying to halt Chinese economic growth and undermine Chinese political influence in East and South East Asia.

The fact that China is the main trading partner of both the USA and Japan tends to be side-lined in the containment argument. Nevertheless, the idea is particularly popular

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not waving but drowning

amongst Chinese nationalists, who are the most vocal media commentators and have done their utmost to racialize what would otherwise have been just a dispute over territory and resources.

Contemporary Chinese nationalism is fostered by the education system. In particular, the history syllabus encourages Chinese students to see their country as the victim

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of foreign oppression. In Chinese textbooks, the twentieth century is referred to as the “Century of Humiliation.” Additionally, students are encouraged to think that the former foreign oppressors (notably Japan, the country which occupied and brutalized much of China during the Second World War) are now fearful of China regaining its position as a global power. However, these textbooks fail to recognise the suffering caused by the Chinese Communist Party, which destroyed traditional culture, caused a famine and sent millions to die in forced labour camps in the desert.

The dual narratives of victimhood and rebirth, when combined, produce a particularly vitriolic form of nationalism.

Japan is also guilty of teaching revisionist history. Since the 1980s, Japan has been accused of using textbooks that downplay its wartime atrocities. In particular, the casualty figures from the Rape of Nanking are decreased and the term “comfort women”, which refers to women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military, were redefined as prostitutes.

These revisions angered many in China and South Korea (a country with which Japan also has an island-based territorial dispute). In Japan, this sort of nationalism is grounded in the academic and popular discourse of “Nihonjiron” or Japanese uniqueness. The ideas expressed within Nihonjiron range from the overtly racist to the outright bizarre. One the one hand, the idea of Japanese racial and cultural homogeneity is emphasized, in spite of centuries of immigration from other Asian countries and the longstanding presence of other indigenous peoples like the Ainu or Okinawans. On the bizarre end of the spectrum, Nihonjiron thinking claims that Japan is the only country in the world with four distinct seasons.

The Senkaku/Diaoyu conflict is an example a territorial dispute becoming increasingly defined competing nationalisms. Both the Chinese and Japanese governments are guilty of hyping up the tension by pandering to militaristic sentiment in their countries. For both, the conflict serves as a convenient distraction from domestic woes. The Chinese government is notoriously corrupt, the growing middle class is demanding political reforms and minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang are protesting at their ill-treatment. In Japan, the economy has been stagnating for the past twenty-years, the population is aging and the Fukushima disaster has revealed that the government is both inefficient and resistant to political and social reforms.

The Senkaku/Diaoyu conflict has several common features with political discussion in South Africa and we, as South Africans, need to be wary of them. For example, racialised political discourse and selective histories make for a problematic, and potentially dangerous, combination.

Additionally, approaching identity in an essentialist way, whether it be Chinese, Japanese or African, will inevitably feed the ugliness of racial politics. CTG

Rob Atwell

has an Honours degree in History

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not waving but drowning

Profile: Mother of Pearl The curious & fantastical life of Dr. Sylvia A. Earle

Kirsty Rice gazes into the life of Dr. Sylvia Earle, a heroine of the seas.

She tells a tale of female empowerment, environmental destruction and a bleak future unless the tides change.

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he elegant, softly-spoken and quite petite 78-year-old laughs, and recalls a moment from her childhood. It was her first glimpse of the great glittering blue sea, and “a great wave knocked me off my feet,” she says.

Dr. Sylvia Alice Earle chooses to be known as just “Sylvia”, while The New York Times refers to her as “Her Deepness”, and The New Yorker prefers “Her Sturgeon General.” Earle encompasses all aspects of marine ecology. With over 50 years of experience, and more than 6 000 hours logged under-water, the research interests and experience of this

Earle, quoting Ray Charles, says she is ‘haunted by the spectre of ‘tomorrow’s child’.

Images courtesy of wikimedia commons

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well-weathered icon are vast.

Born in 1935, Earle was a teenager when self-contained underwater breathing apparatus – SCUBA - became public ally available. Earle, to use the unenviable pun, took to the ocean as a fish to water. But ultimately, it was 1970 that marked a noticeable change in her career. Earle joined the first all-female team to conduct a sub-nautical exploration as part of what was known as the Tektite project.

Just one year after NASA had put a man on the moon, Earle began speaking out as a leading figure of marine research, charting the map for female-headed research teams in all USA federal scientific faculties. When asked about lipstick, hairdryers and coping with the rather literal pressure of spending prolonged hours in the watery ‘labo-

ratory’, Earle realized that she could use the deck provided to voice ecological concerns about the ocean. Back in 1970, the oceanographer-come-media-darling was dubbed the voice of the first all-female “Aqua-babes”. Reality dictates a much more impressive titling.

Amongst the collective descriptions of wife, lecturer, author, aquanaut, oceanographer, explorer, marine-biologist and humanist, Earle is officially recognized as National Geographic’s oceanic explorer-in-residence, founder of Mission Blue (also known as the Sylvia Alliance) and Deep Ocean Engineering (DOER), former president of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as Time magazine’s first announced ‘Hero for the Planet’. She also holds 15 honorary degrees and was knighted by the Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark. Despite the prolific achievements of this rare specimen, Sylvia Earle is most famous for her 2009 TED award following her ‘wish for the planet’. The scientist made waves when she resigned from her position at NOAA to continue her underwater research and to speak out about Marine Ecology from the viewpoint of a public citizen full-time.

The hull of Earle’s interest is anchored firmly in saving what she believes to be the most valuable resource of planet earth – the big blue. Earle likes to quote Ray Charles, saying she is ‘haunted’ by the spectre of what he calls ‘tomorrow’s child’.

She points to some startling facts: 90% of all large wild fish have become extinct or been served up ‘swimming in lemon and butter, on a plate’, and 50% of the coral reefs that existed in the first half of the previous century have been

march 2013

not waving but drowning wiped out by human carelessness. “How do we explain to our future generations that we, due to our lack of knowledge, have over-polluted and over-harvested the sea’s resources? . . . The living ocean provides a life support system for all species on Earth. If the sea is sick, we will feel it. If it dies, we die.”

The concerns that Earle voices are all too valid, and have swum to the surface partly due to the fact that Earle literally once inhabited another world. Growing up pre-1950, Earle is very aware of gender-inequalities – the notion that she is the pioneering female explorer is not unfounded.

More relevantly, the ocean she explored has changed significantly in her 50 years of exploration. Half a century has seen exactly 80% of the Florida Keys reef ,where Earle conducts most of her research, destroyed. This washes up as a gross global reduction of 1% a year.

Earle has spent enough time underwater to further note that the brilliant schools of lionfish and exotic cup-corals are, in fact, foreigners: they’re partly to blame for ‘displaces natives’ which include an entire species of lobster.

The ocean, from space, now includes large islands of waste which float idly around the Pacific; landfills of plastic and garbage that pollute and aid the transmission of waste that humans aren’t willing to tolerate on land. Instead, we gift it to the ocean – the resource that allows Earth to be more habitable than any other planet in our solar system.

The damage caused by rising water temperatures, overdevelopment of coastlines, overfishing, pollution as well

as the destruction of coral reefs is yet to be understood.

While the personal campaigning done by Earle has had a great effect in promoting the US stakeholders into taking preventative measures, such as the opening of 17 marine reserves; the general public still remains ignorant to the crisis that our seas are facing.

If the sea is sick, we will feel it. If it dies, we die.

At 78, Earle remains an active researcher, spending the month of July, 2012, in the underwater bunker named Aquarius studying the Florida Keys reef. “My goal during the July Aquarius mission was to observe and document changes in a part of the world I witnessed as a young scientist in 1953, and later explored using the SCUBA, invented in the 1940s … Scientists using Aquarius over the past 20 years have been able to document the decline of the Conch Reef and have gathered information on the complexities of the system that can help us understand what has gone wrong. It will provide insight about what can be done to restore this and other reefs”.

Sheltering us from storms and providing 70% of the world’s entire oxygen supply, the ocean is our most valuable resource. Earle is but one shining sea-star that asks the public to invest in the future their planet. For in the words of the poet Auden, a dear favourite of Sylvia: “Thousands have lived without love, but none have survived without water.” CTG

kirsty rice

is a third-year student majoring in Psychology, English and History.

The Cape Town Globalist

27

science

Shape Up or

Ship Out

From land-reclamation to floating cities, Liz Maelene explores how scientists and architects are meeting the challenge of population pressures

W

hat do New York, Karachi, Istanbul and Paris all have in common? They all have a density of more than 10 million people. In other words, they are megacities. Currently there are 27 megacities with populations ranging from 10 million (Paris) to 35 million (Tokyo). Megacities are a phenomenon of frenetic population growth and urbanization. More than that, they are a beacon of our unsustainable lifestyles being hotbeds of pollution, slums and poverty. If the earth is filling up and we can’t live on it, maybe we need to live off it. Scientists and innovative architects are turning to green design as a sustainable solution to city-living.

Coastal cities have always attracted urban inhabitants to their aesthetically and economically bountiful shores.

This is one of the reasons that coastal cities in developing nations like Nigeria are being populated at such an alarming rate. It is estimated that by 2015 the population of the African megacity, Lagos, will be approximately 50 million, making it the third largest city in the world.

The floating city’s energy sources would include solar, wind and tidal.

Image courtesy of Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Liz Maelene

is a third-year Architecture student

28

Parallel to those statistics is the impending threat of rising sea levels, which have scarred the majority of Lagos’ beaches and nearby Victoria Island’s promenade. Consistent flooding and corrosion of the coastline were catalysts for one of the most groundbreaking projects the continent has ever seen. Already being dubbed ‘The Dubai of Africa’, The Eko Atlantic development is set to be the future economic ‘Gateway to Africa’.

The project, currently in its second phase of development, consists of a massive man-made extension to the Victoria Island coastline largely by means of a sturdy 8km long breakwater and harvested sea sand from about 10m into the deep. The thoroughly tested breakwater comprises of 12 different rock and concrete components; expected to withstand the worst possible storm within a 150-year period.

The practice of land reclamation is not a new one and has been implemented in many different countries. Examples include the Manhattan region in New York and, closer to home, the Cape Town Foreshore. In most cases, the method is beneficial for the rehabilitation and protec-

tion of coastlines. On the other hand, the process disrupts the eco-systems and marine biodiversity in and along the affected coastline. This would not only tamper with natural systems but also decrease the amount of readily available seafood in those areas. It may be a small price to pay in relation to the dire need for urban expansion, but is it a truly necessary one?

On the opposite end of the ocean, designers, engineers and marine scientists are crafting serious alternatives for humans living in harmony with tidal shifts and exhausted landscapes. One such development is the LILYPAD, a conceptual floating city designed by Vincent Callebaut, a Belgian architect who specializes in sustainable design.

The development was designed in the form of a titanium dioxide-lined water lily and serves as a zero-emissions, environmentally-sustainable city on the sea. The floating city’s energy sources would include solar, wind and tidal.

Crucially it is designed to host 50 million inhabitants – this is our floating megacity. Unfortunately, even a prototype of the futuristic concept is unlikely to be built anytime soon.

On a smaller and more realistic scale are the extravagant ORSOS Island Homes that can sleep 12 people. These solar-powered resorts are completely self-sustainable and have the added feature of desalinating seawater for drinking purposes. Their starting costs are around $4.6 million and it is hoped the first two will be completed in the next two years. This concept is still being punted more as a luxury getaway for the wealthy than a green solution to overpopulation, though.

The other end of the spectrum evokes images of the handcrafted, laundry covered, wooden vessels of the Bajau Laut house-boat villages in Borneo. Communities have lived off land for centuries and architects interested in sustainability should take their cues from how these villages survive. Bearing in mind the Aquatic Ape theory, which stipulates that humans descended from creatures of the water, an ocean-driven lifestyle could be a return to our most natural element.

Life on the sea – as opposed to life against the sea - may in future be the most sustainable and logical response. The examples above continue to display the remarkable ingenuity that we, humans, possess. It seems that we always have, and always will, find a way to keep our heads safely above the water. CTG

march 2013

Duty and Documentary

philosophy

If chumming sharks potentially risks human life (as well as pro-shark sentiment), can it be justified by documentary-makers using the technique in the name of conservation? Chris van der Westhuyzen deliberates.

I

n April last year, champion South African bodyboarder, David Lilienfeld, was fatally attacked by a shark while paddling out at Koeel Bay. Not long afterwards it came to light that shark researcher, Chris Fischer, had been chumming in the False Bay area to lure sharks for his controversial documentary series, Shark Men. Fischer’s research permits were revoked immediately after the attack.

The aim of Fischer’s documentary series – conservation – was compromised through the accusations of his supposedly having incited a shark attack, which then inflamed anti-shark sentiment. In cases such as the shark attack related to Fischer’s research, two important questions emerge: Where do we draw the line for methods which potentially endanger the public to the point that they undermine conservation, in an industry meant to serve just that?

Does the end justify the means for documentary-makers attempting to educate audiences on the subjects of their documentaries?

Wildlife documentary-makers have the important job of educating people about the many threats facing endangered species in our animal kingdom. This is an important way in which the public learn about conservation. Given their focus, wildlife film-makers are expected to place conservation and the security of animals at the forefront of their efforts. However, sometimes these responsibilities clash with a film-maker’s own quest to make a ‘good film’.

Great White Shark researcher Chris Fischer headed a video crew in April 2012 with the aim of gathering footage on these magnificent creatures in Cape Town’s False Bay area. These camera teams are usually in charge of filming shark handlers and scientists while they catch, tag and release the sharks as part of a standard research procedure.

Fischer has been widely criticized for his methods of ‘chumming’ during filming. Instead of waiting for the sharks to appear naturally, his crew prefers to lure the animals using a mixture of water, fish oil, and crushed sardines; a concoction known as chum. By dumping the bloody mix overboard, the researchers provoke the shark, allowing them to predict the animal's behaviour as the cameramen stand by to capture the scene.

This controversial luring technique is used by shark researchers and cage-diving operators across the world.

Researchers argue that no other method will allow them to get the shark close enough to the boat to attach a tag to its dorsal fin. Cage operators claim that without chumming, there is no guarantee that a shark will make itself seen during a diving trip. Surfers and swimmers, however, counter that there is a link between the method and increased shark attacks on humans. There is also a concern that chumming conditions sharks to associate humans or their vessels with food.

Due to these safety concerns, chumming permits for

The Cape Town Globalist

cage-diving and research are heavily regulated in South Africa. Legislation states that chumming should only be used to lure, and not to feed sharks. Operators argue that conditioning will only arise if they intentionally contravene permit regulations.

According to Fischer, chumming is a necessary tool to the survival of the Great White. “If we don’t handle a few of these sharks, and we don’t know anything about their life, we might accidentally wipe them off the face of the planet.” Arguably, Fischer's intentions do seem noble - he wants to promote shark conservation. But does this justify endangering lives and potentially conditioning sharks to associate boats or humans with food?

Despite their responsibilities as public educators and advocates of conservation, wildlife documentary-makers are often accused of neglecting truthfulness and accuracy in favour of popular appeal. Most viewers prefer raw action to scientific pedantry. Filmmakers sometimes offer exaggerated accounts to thrill the viewer, at the same time greatly misrepresenting the animal. Consider titles like ‘Shark Bites’ and ‘Deadliest Catch’. In a world where these animals are endangered, the image of the bloodthirsty, flesh-guzzling man-eater is one documentaries should be avoiding rather than promoting; despite sensational representations being one that sells.

Image courtesy of wikimedia commons

Chumming conditions sharks to associate humans or their vessels with food.

While it remains impossible to determine whether the chumming was directly or indirectly responsible for the bodyboarder’s untimely death, the subsequent gestures of industry insiders certainly did little to exonerate the filmmakers. Following the attack, the Department of Environmental Affairs immediately withdrew the team’s research permits, and the National Geographic channel denied any association with Fisher’s television series, Shark Men. Part of conservation means improving the attitudes of the public towards the animals concerned in the hope that people will support the fight against species extinction; yet defending the practice of chumming in the name of conservation is problematic if it can be linked to increasing the chance that these predators will interact with humans with deadly results. Fortunately for researchers, the link between chumming and shark-related deaths is still murky.

For the moment, chumming remains an effective method for researchers and documentary filmmakers to use in capturing their subjects on film. CTG

Chris van der Westhuyzen

is a Third-year student in Film and Media Production: Print Journalism, and International Relations

29

A Coastal Caveat For his 1969 artwork, Wrapped Coast, Bulgarian artist Christo Javacheff literally swathed up part of the Australian coast. TARA WEBER critically dissects the piece and extracts the messages that still resonate today for our oceans and attitudes.

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etween the 28th of October and the 14th of December 1969, 2.4 kilometres of the Little Bay coast in Sydney, Australia disappeared under a million square feet of plastic-based fabric. For ten weeks, this little-known section of the coast was transformed into a gigantic, billowing monument; a work in a perpetual state of change; contours shifting with the wind, shrouding the rocky cliffs as if to prepare some great statue for its unveiling. A sculpture of this scale was unprecedented in the art world, let alone in Australia, and for some time was the only work to surpass Mount Rushmore in size. It quickly became apparent, however, that the artwork’s scale was not its only source of fascination.

The piece, entitled Wrapped Coast – 1 Million Square Feet by Bulgarian born artist Christo Javacheff, could not avoid raising some important questions not only about art, but also about the environment and man’s interaction with it. For what could be a better way to draw attention to a landscape and mankind’s imposition, than such a selfconscious smothering of it entirely in a man-made construction.

Whilst Christo is by no means exclusively a land artist,

It takes much greater courage to create things to be gone, than to create things that will remain

Tara Weber

is an Honours student in Curatorship

30

some of his most memorable projects, like Wrapped Coast, have centred on an intervention with the environment. In Surrounded Islands, a 1980s piece, Christo surrounded two Miami Islands entirely with 603,850 m2 of buoyant pink fabric. As with the later installation in Australia, plenty of interaction with the environment occurred, especially with respect to conservation issues. Roughly forty tons of debris and rubbish were removed from the islands in preparation for the piece, making the artwork an implicit act of conservation.

Christo has remained adamant that Wrapped Coast was not making a statement of any kind. However, the history and study of art has taught us that the artist’s interpretation need not be the only one. Art can be a lens through which to examine and understand more about ourselves and the world surrounding us. Artworks can be interpreted differently over time, and it is not unusual for a piece to accumulate multiple meanings, and become more relevant as it ages.

As much as the artist might seek for Wrapped Coast to stand simply as an aesthetic feat, the piece itself, and par-

ticularly its location neighbouring a public garbage dump, seem to invite another meaning. Art critic David Bourdon once characterised Christo’s work as “revelation through concealment”. In this way, Wrapped Coast, through the monument that is its concealment, highlights the intersection between the ocean and the rubbish dump beside it, as a mark of human activity on the landscape.

The rubbish tip at Little Bay is a human imposition on the environment of the most undesirable kind. The coast has a history tainted with disease having been a quarantine camp for smallpox and typhoid sufferers and later even bubonic plague sufferers during the 1800s. Its beaches also suffered heavily from waste from the sewage treatment plant up north.

Wrapped Coast, whilst temporary and in the name of art, is also an imposition. Arguably, it is an artwork about the relationship between mankind and the environment; a relationship that in many ways smothers, binds and obliterates. Reactions to the artwork polarised the community.

Some believed the piece to be a gross waste of time and money considering the presence of the financially struggling hospital nearby. Others saw it as a unifying agent for the community, a much needed act of aestheticism which served in some way as a tribute to this lesser section of Sydney’s coastline.

Even at the time, many of the responses to Wrapped Coast reflected awareness of the destructive nature of human activity, with some residents considering the potential for the work as a comment on our ‘plastic society’. The expense and sheer quantity of material expended for the project was seen by many as an act of vulgar indulgence, perhaps even as an obscure strain of consumerism. The fact that it provoked such a reaction is a reflection of the work’s ability to ask us these questions. It prods us to look at the evidence of the plastic, consumerist experience that ultimately ends in the garbage dump, through an act of violence towards the natural world.

Although this work made an impact on the environment, all materials were recycled after being used and the site was restored to its ‘previous’ condition. Whether or not that could truly have been possible considering the delicate balance that is a coastal habitat, some kind of the understanding or message can still be taken from the work. Christo’s philosophy that “it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone, than to create things that will remain,” is one that can readily be applied to our society today, and may be one to live by when it comes to our relationship with the environment.

CTG

march 2013

Waving goodbye

curtain call

to the ocean

I

hail from Durban and the only thing we are famous for, besides our unfortunate twang on words such as ‘hill’ and ‘milk’, is our beaches. Yet if you take a trip to the KwaZulu Natal coast you will be swiftly be disappointed at the region’s claim to fame. I think it’s mostly the haze of pollution that hangs in the air, the underlying brown tinge to the ocean and the lucky packet of chicken bones, bottle tops and condoms that awaits you in the sand. Combined with the fact that the sea is the temperature of second-hand bathwater and the ratio of humans to grains of sand is disturbingly skewed, a trip to the beach often results in me thinking, “What if we had just stayed at home instead?”

Yet rather than chalking up ‘a day at the seaside’ to a nice idea that worked in the past, and moving on to more sophisticated pastimes (like snowboarding, indoors, in Africa) we seem hell-bent on trying to restore the ocean to its former glory. Why don’t we just leave it be? And by leave it be, I mean put our rubbish in it and use it to store any extra oil we have lying around. In fact, why not make the solitary purpose of the ocean to harbour (pun intended) our pollution: we’re already running out of space on land and it seems to be working quite well so far.

You may argue that it was humans who ruined the ocean in the first place. If we had just left it alone then we wouldn’t have to deal with the filth-cauldron it’s become.

To this I say: if we hadn’t destroyed it then some other creature probably would have anyway. How long do you think the humpback whales can mosey around the deep blue sea before they break something with their big, inelegant tails or accidently sit on some delicate coral reef?

Also, we really are just assuming that sea creatures intrinsically value the world which they live in. If The Little Mermaid showed us anything it’s that the sea-dwellers themselves are just as eager to walk upon the shores as we are; they’d probably be glad to see the place Flounder and go to ruins. I mean Ariel had dreams, too #iwannabewheretheswagis #dolphinssuck.

I guess it’s also at this stage that people will point out that there may be consequences for turning our oceans into sinks of dirty dishwater. I think this is unreasonable.

I have yet to see a collective human decision create an unmanageable catastrophe. But I will humour some of your concerns and systematically prove I’m right in the process.

First concern: destroying our oceans means destroying the animals that live in it.

You think you like fish? Open a tin of tuna in a crowded room and show me how many people actually like fish.

Plus, scarcity creates value. You only realise how great something is once it’s gone and a lack of fish in the ocean will finally justify the exorbitant aquarium prices we endure. Furthermore, the really nice sea creatures (penguins, seals and dolphins) spend a fair amount of time above

The Cape Town Globalist

Durbanite Lori-Rae van Laren thinks the glamour days of the sea are over.

the water anyway so they’d continue to live happy lives at a poolside somewhere. Dolphins probably foresaw the whole ‘humans destroying the ocean’ thing anyway so it won’t be long before they sail into the sky singing “so long and thanks for all the fish”.

Second concern: destroying our oceans will have disastrous economical effects.

The saying goes that if you teach a man to fish he’ll eat

Illustration by Greg Bakker

Dolphins probably foresaw the whole ‘humans destroying the ocean’ thing anyway for the rest of his life. I’m not sure why this metaphor can’t be extended to carrots as well. Also, who better to be employed by the now bustling and successful aquariums then ex-fishermen? And don’t even get me started on the amount of money that will be re-injected into the economy when we don’t have the option of buying sushi platters.

Final concern: destroying our oceans will greatly affect the water cycle and leave us without any water to drink.

Surely by now we can staple together two hydrogen atoms, cellotape on an oxygen atom and produce man-made water? If not, then what is the point of Science?

So for now the dream of creating a watery sinkhole for the garbage we produce is merely a dream. But we can make it a reality by continuing to behave the way we do. Be sure to toss this magazine into a local water source once you’re done reading it. CTG

LORI-RAE VAN LAREN is an Honours

student specialising in Justice and Transformation.

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3 WAYS TO WRITE FOR US

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• Audio/video • Social media • Fostering reader interaction online • Dynamic and creative content

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