April 2015
Volume 10 Issue 1
UCT’S STUDENT INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS MAGAZINE
How long will you be staying? The effect of civil war
ISIS Recruiting A foreign influx
The African Literary Diaspora
HUMAN MOVEmenT
Human Trafficking
A refugee’s story
The influence of technology
An untold narrative
The Cape Town Globalist
An accurate portrayal?
CTGLOBALIST.COM
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reject internet censorship South Africa’s Film & Publications Board has released draft regulations to police the entire internet. Take a stand against internet censorship! Go to r2k.org.za/HandsOffOurInternet to sign the petition and spread the word!
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#HandsOffOurInternet
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facebook.com/right2know
april 2015
Editor-in-Chief Ashleigh Furlong
Contents
Deputy Editor Alicia Chamaille Content Editors Aisha Abdool Karim Tshilidzi Neluvhalani Khensani Ngobeni Mandisa Nduli Tahiera Overmeyer Karla Hugo Layout Editor Daniel Rautenbach Deputy Layout Editor Zona Magadla
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Appetisers 6
ISIS, migration and their continued power
News bites
What’s happening in the world
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8 Q&A 9
Head of Marketing Kachipa Masipa
with James Chapman
22
Armchair Globalist
Social movements through the decades
The Cape Town Globalist
Human trafficking in the modern era
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back The Evolution of Social Movements
Social movements in social media
News 10
11 12
Greenpeace’s tour of South Africa
Greenpeace and nuclear energy
The ISIS Appeal
Why ISIS?
SONA 2015
A recap of the State of the Nation Address
Cover Photo A South Sudanese refugee walks to base camp with clean water ©UNICEF Ethiopia The Cape Town Globalist is published three 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
How long will you be staying?
Civil war and refugees
25
Finance Salma Khan
Andre’s Story
A Congolese refugee in Cape Town
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Deputy of Marketing Mandisa Nduli
Contributors Benjamin Hetherington Lila Kelly Lisa Berkman Julia Chaskalson Peter Beare Alicia Chamaille Hilary Price Zareen Kamalie Nick Carson Rebecca Rogers Azi Mqatazana Tatjana Baleta Katherina Gensicke Rutendo Bamhare
The Islamic State – How Close is the End?
Philosophy, Science and Art Human Movement 14
Scalabrini: A Place of Hope
A photo essay documenting the Scalabrini Centre
Contributions from the London and Paris Globalists
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International Contributions
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The Great Intellectual Upsurge
E-learning and intelligence
When Ebola is just plane ride away
Movement and disease
The African Literary Diaspora
Africa and Africans in novels
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The Cape Town Globalist is a member of
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Network of International Affairs Magazines 5 LANGUAGES www.global21online.org 5 CONTINENTS
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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
april 2015
Editorial As a Capetonian I am constantly astounded at the plethora of people who I encounter every day in this city. Malawian, Zimbabwean, Ghanaian, German, British, Australian, I am continually reminded that the world is infinitely bigger than South Africa. I am also reminded that humans are continually moving around this enormous rotating globe – travelling from one place to another in search of something different from the place where they started. The movement of humans seems to be a perennial aspect of what it means to be a member of the homo sapiens sapiens species. The immovable fact is that we continue to move. Our earliest ancestors roamed the land in search of more hospitable environments and we ourselves continue this exploration. Nowadays people move to escape from war, crime, barren lands, poverty and oppression; the list could go on forever. Sometimes this movement is forced such as in the case of trafficking or deportation. In other cases this movement is not an escape but rather an exciting adventure. Human movement also does not necessarily have to be an act of moving away, it can be moving together as has been seen for thousands of years in the form of social and political movements. The theme, Human Movement, which we have chosen for this edition is a mammoth theme and could span pages and pages but unfortunately we had to be picky and sift through all the possible topics about which we could write. In the edition we explore the effect of civil war on refugees as well interview an expert in this field. We also retell part of one man’s experience as a refugee in Cape Town. We investigate how disease influences human movement and how e-learning has the possibility to improve our intelligence. We take a look at social movements in history as well as how social media is influencing social movements today. We also delve into the African literary diaspora and investigate ISIS’s influence on migration. In our news articles we further examine ISIS, this time looking at why the organisation continues to gather supporters. The arrival of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior on our shores is the springboard for our article on nuclear energy and we also recap and dissect the recent State of the Nation address. We hope that this edition, the first of 2015, does much more than just inform you. We aim to create a magazine which launches debate and makes the reader think. If you would like to comment on an article, ask a question or find out how you can get involved in the Cape Town Globalist, drop us a line at ctglobalist@gmail.com. We hope you enjoy reading this edition as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
Ashleigh Furlong
Editor-in-Chief
The Cape Town Globalist
5
News bites Apple and the History Books
Apple is set to make history once again. The technology company that is always ahead of the rest is releasing a watch. Analysts have estimated that, should the watch become a hit, it would set the worth of Apple dangerously close to $1tn. This is after they had changed history by having the highest quarterly profit made by a public company ever. It made a profit of $18bn which was attributed to the sale of 74.5 million iPhones in the months between September to December.
Boko Haram and ISIS
Boko Haram is constantly in the news for its regular attacks on Nigerians. Now it seems that it is making headlines for a different reason that is still rousing panic in the media. The terrorist group has reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. It is reported that the leader of the Nigerian-based Islamist group, Abubakar Shekau, released an audio message in which he states that they are aligned to the ‘Caliph of the Muslims’ which is the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr alBaghdadi. While the US and other critics think that the partnership will be ineffective, some agree that it makes sense for Boko Haram as it will give them legitimacy. 6
Hollywood Award Season If you are wondering where to start with quality movie watching, then maybe you should start with the ones that cleaned out this awards’ season. Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel seem to be the best movies of 2014 as they have won the most Academy awards at this year’s Oscar’s. They each received four awards at the ceremony. Birdman was awarded for Best Picture while The Grand Budapest Hotel received the award for Best Picture in a comedy/musical category at the Golden Globes. They won several other accolades throughout the 2014/2015 award season. Other notable movies are Boyhood and Whiplash.
Xenophobia Strikes Again
Monitoring people travelled on flights in 2013
3.1 billion 20%
of the world’s immigrant population lives in America
61500
is the estimated number, by UNHCR, of asylum seekers in South Africa
ISIS Releases Hostages
After a few quiet years free from mass xenophobic attacks in the townships of South Africa, 2015 broke the silence. These attacks, as it has been reported, were sparked by the killing of a South African teenager by a foreign national shop owner in Soweto, Johannesburg. Due to this aspect of crime, many have argued against calling them xenophobic attacks and lean towards terms such as lootings. Regardless of what it is called, in a span of a week, many were killed including a baby and even more foreign nationals lost their businesses across Johannesburg townships. On Sunday, 1 March the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released 19 Assyrian Christian hostages, according to Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London. The hostages, 16 men and 3 women, were dropped off at a church near their homes in the village of Tal Ghoran. At least 220 Assyrians were kidnapped on 23 February from villages in Hassakeh a province in Northern Syria. Aside from their common age and religion, there is no clear reason for their release and ISIS has not yet released any information on what will happen to the remaining hostages april 2015
appetisers
Movements
Last Ebola patient discharged in Liberia
11 700 000
number of illegal immigrant in the US in 2013
+8 million 3000
is the average amount of passengers on flights per day
is the worldwide average number of people who become refugees daily
Statistics courtesy of statisticbrain.com
Murder of Boris Nemstov Boris Nemstov, a prominent opposition leader in Russia, was shot and killed on 27 February whilst walking on the Moskvoretsky Bridge, near the Kremlin, with his girlfriend. On Wednesday, 3 February, President Vladimir Putin met with ministry officials and condemned the murder, demanding a thorough investigation into what he has deemed a political crime. On Sunday, 1 March, approximately 21,000 people marched to commemorate Nemstov’s life and demand political justice in Russia. A reward of three million Russian Rubles (approximately R570,000) has been offered for relevant information that can be provided in the ongoing investigation.
The Cape Town Globalist
Beatrice Yordolo, Liberia’s last Ebola patient, was discharged from a Chinese-run treatment centre on Thursday, 5 March, bringing the number of known infected patients in Liberia down to zero. Following her discharge, the Liberian government had a crematorium dismantled, as bodies were cremated to avoid spreading the disease. In addition, drums containing the ashes of over 3 000 people who died from Ebola were removed. This marks the progress made by Liberia in containing the Ebola outbreak, which killed over 4 100 people in the country. If no new cases are reported by 16 April then the country will officially be declared Ebola-free.
Ceasefire Violation in Ukraine
Ukraine’s military said that despite the ceasefire deal, pro-Russian rebels have been gathering heavy weapons around Donetsk, a separatist dominated city. The deal was negotiated in Minsk last month calling for a withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline, but there have been accusations of violating this agreement from both sides. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe is monitoring the withdrawal of weapons; however they are unable to confirm whether both sides are complying with the ceasefire, as not all locations of where the weapons have been moved are disclosed. Both parties have alleged that the opposition has resumed attacks, with nine casualties within the Ukrainian military thus far.
Painting at the bottom of a lake Yurly Alekseev, a 49-year-old Russian artist, does his paintings at the bottom of Lake Baika, located near his home. Alekseev wears diving gear and takes his painting equipment with him in order to capture the essence of being underwater. He spends up to 90 minutes on each painting and uses natural oil paints on a primed canvas as this enables him to paint whilst submerged. Alekseev chooses to paint underwater to provide him with an alternative perspective, as the water alters the appearance of objects in terms of their size and colour. He said his biggest problem is that the drop in temperature causes the paint to become stiffer and harder to use.
Report on Racism in Ferguson The U.S. Department of Justice released a report on Wednesday, 4 March which accused police and court officials in Ferguson, Missouri of racial prejudice. Following the report two police officers and the city manager resigned and a court clerk was fired. James Knowles, Mayor of Ferguson has said that the three workers demonstrated “egregious racial bias” and that Ferguson officials are looking into other reforms to implement in compliance with the Justice Department. A municipal court judge, Judge Roy L. Richter, was named in the report for showing bias in cases and resigned on Monday, 9 March.
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appetisers
Q&A
with
James Chapman
James Chapman, an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, currently works at the Refugee Rights Unit at UCT focussing on strategic lititgation. In this Q&A with rutendo bamhare he discusses what it means to be a refugee in South Africa as well as what the Unit does.
What is the difference between a migrant, an immigrant, a refugee and an asylum seeker? To begin with, a migrant is someone moving from one place to another. The migrant may be moving internally within a country, from one country to another, or to a series of countries. The reasons people migrate are mixed. Some may migrate to go and stay with someone or to take up a job opportunity while others may migrate as their life is under threat where they currently are and are forced to flee. An immigrant is a person who has moved to another country to live their permanently. A refugee is someone who, loosely speaking, fled their country fearing for their life and liberty and who cannot return to their country as the threat or risk persists. An asylum seeker is someone who is seeking
The most important Refugee law is the principle of Non-Refoulement – which states that a person cannot be returned to a place where her or his life or liberty would be at risk.
to obtain refuge. In South Africa in terms of the Refugees Act an Asylum Seeker is someone who is being processed at Home Affairs and the Department of Home Affairs has not yet decided whether the person is a refugee or not. Hence an asylum seeker is someone who is still in the Refugee Status Determination Process. What are the key refugee laws in South Africa?
The most important Refugee law is the prin-
ciple of Non-Refoulement – which states that a person cannot be returned to a place where her or his life or liberty would be at risk. This is provided for in Section 2 of the Refugees Act. Refugees and Asylum Seekers are protected by the South African Constitution and hence they have the right to equality and dignity, freedom of movement, fair trial rights and socio-economic rights such as the right to basic education and the right to health. Part of the Right to Dignity is the right to documentation. This right is also provided for by the Refugees Act. Asylum Seekers and Refugees also have the right not to be arrested or detained arbitrarily. What does the Refugee Rights Clinic do?
The Refugee Rights Clinic is part of the UCT Refugee Rights Unit and the Clinic provides direct legal services to refugees and asylum seekers. The Clinic assists asylum seekers and refugees with legal problems they may experience with respect to documentation and rights realisation. The Refugee Rights Unit was founded in 1998 as a project within the UCT Law Clinic, aimed at providing legal support services to the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. It has since evolved into a fully independent Unit, with four main components: providing direct legal services to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in the Western Cape each year; conducting applied research into refugee law and related topics; teaching refugee law to undergraduate law and masters’ students within the Department of Public Law; and, undertaking a significant amount of targeted advocacy and training of government officials, the judiciary, civil society partners and refugee communities. The Refugee Rights Unit remains not only committed to directly assisting refugees and asylum seekers but also to engage in research which can be used to promote and further the
law in this area and as an advocacy tool in the future. There are a number of successful and a few unsuccessful cases that come to mind. Where a matter is unsuccessful, we see that as an opportunity to address the challenge from a different angle to achieve success. There have been a number of successful court cases including one recently where 1000 people were assisted by
We assisted more than 200 people to see to it that an unlawful policy to stop extending asylum permits was changed.
the Clinic with a Court order providing for the extension of their asylum permits in Cape Town when the Department of Home Affairs was refusing to do so. Another example is a case in which we assisted more than 200 people to see to it that an unlawful policy to stop extending asylum permits, once they had been extended a certain number of times, was changed as a result of our intervention. For more on this perhaps you can look to our website which lists some of the cases we addressed in court. It is also important to note that in many cases we work with the Department of Home Affairs, the Police or the Employers and Civil Society to achieve success for our clients without the cost and time expended in going to court. How do individuals who require your services contact you? We can be contacted telephonically on 0216505581, via fax on (27) 21 650 4107 or email on james.chapman@uct.ac.za. CTG Rutendo Bamhare is a second year Bachelor of Scient student majoring in in Politics, Philosophy and Economics
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april 2015
We Shall Overcome
armchair
Benjamin Hetherington takes us on a flash tour of social movements throughout history.
W
e, the human race, will never be satisfied and it’s becoming more and more possible for us to express our dissatisfaction. When you voice your concerns, grievances, or frustrations to make a point, you’re protesting. Whether it’s about a disliked lecturer or about global neo-liberalism, you’re showing willingness to shout out and object to what you think is wrong. We wouldn’t have come very far without social movements, so here are four over the last hundred years that show us various sides of a protest movement. These people were willing to stand up for what they believed in and leave their imprint for future generations. Fighters for Frequency
Before there were hashtags and trends about Ferguson, there was radio, and it was originally seen as one way of expressing a desire for freedom en masse. In her informative book Broadcasting Freedom, Barbara Dianne Savage sheds light on wartime, showing how radio was an unprecedentedly effective means of communication. The other side of this venerable force of mass media was the discrimination towards African Americans. A medium that was blind to skin colour dismissed any attempt to voice the grievances of African Americans, despite efforts by the NAACP. However, the racial riots of 1943, which resulted in 40 deaths and hundreds of injuries, aroused enough impetus and support for those critical voices to be heard. Two 1948 radio shows displayed their support and finally gave a voice to the Civil Rights Movement. Richard Durham’s show, Destination Freedom, was a hard-hitting thirty minute programme about historical African American figures. Championing what was probably the most influential use of mass media for fighting racial injustice that America had seen, Durham gave white commercial media the defiance it deserved by “portraying African Americans as they are – self-assertive, confident and outside the realm of fear or subservience.” This radio activism, coupled with civil protest, paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. The Stolen Struggle
As haunting as it is, there is truth in the adage: “History is written by the victors.” Little is known about the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), which was the dominant resistance movement after Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness. Then emerged the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983, which served as an on-the-ground front for the exiled ANC. Initially the conflict between the two groups was merely ideological. However, in his book, My Traitor’s Heart, Rian Malan says that after protesting the visit of US Senator Ted Kennedy, organised by the UDF, AZAPO’s fate took a turn. Due to the overwhelming power of the UDF, the state’s ability to divide through the atmosphere of paranoia, and AZAPO’s radical propositions that weren’t favoured by the international community, the organisation disbanded after failing to hold out in the townships. Thus resulting in The Cape Town Globalist
their struggle being overlooked by millions today. A Mean, Green, Fighting Machine
“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.” What happens, then, when the terrorist in question isn’t fighting for another man’s freedom, but rather for his environment? No one wants to make the mistake of confusing the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) as passive tree-huggers. It argues that its illegal and inherently dangerous methods, dubbed “ecotage”, such as commonly using arson, are necessary for its aims. Just before 9/11, it was deemed the top “domestic terror” threat by the FBI and between 1998 and 2009 its protests in the United States alone resulted in over $50 million worth in damages, as well as several arrests with lifetime imprisonments. What also makes it unique is its completely decentralised nature: lack of structure, leadership or membership. The ELF, or Elves, have not recently committed any acts of the magnitude seen prior to 2009. However, due to their sketchy press office, it’s difficult to tell what their next move could be. Nonetheless, with environmental debates more pervasive than ever, it’s certainly not a static movement. Zapatista la Vista, Baby
In 1994, a guerilla army calling themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, proposing an exotic concoction of traditional Mayan ideals, anarchism and Marxism, stormed several cities in the Chiapas region of Mexico and declared war on the state. Although the uprising was swiftly quelled, the Zapatistas continued to exist in a defensive state of protest. Garnering widespread international support through their alignment to the alter-globalisation movement, their declarations focus on non-violent solutions to the issues it faces. It refuses to make an attempt at political advancement in the current system, which it completely rejects. However, the Zapatistas haven’t become dormant; it’s notable for its campaign being parallel to the presidential campaigns of 2006, the “Other Campaign”. While not strictly autonomous from Mexico, several communities in the region associated with the group get very little from the state and try to separate themselves as best as they can, with their own healthcare, education, drive for gender equality and sustainable agriculture projects. After attempting to get a rounder sense of social movements, they are still incredibly complex. Media hype is dangerous, yet mass media is an indispensable part of protest. Does action result from considered direction, or is it a headless monster without leadership? When does a selfserving community become a restrictive cult? There is certainly danger to protest movements but the world would be a scarily backward place without them and the people who choose to fight for what they believe in. CTG
BENJAMIN HETHERINGTON
is a first year student majoring in Economics and Law
9
news
Greenpeace’s tour of South Africa:
ENOUGH WITH THE NUCLEAR Image: Chooz Centrale
With Greenpeace currently touring South Africa and Eskom in crisis, energy has never been more pertinent to the country. lila kelly explains what all this means in the bigger picture.
O
LILA KELLY
is a 3rd year Bachelor of Social Science student Majoring in Environmental & Geographical Science and Psychology
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n 1 November 2014, Eskom announced that a coal silo at their Majuba Power Station had collapsed, cutting off supplies to the country’s power stations, resulting in the re-establishment of sporadic “load shedding” nationwide. Amid this energy crisis, President Jacob Zuma in his 2015 State of the Nation Address (SONA 2015) announced the government’s plans to inject R23-billion into Eskom to help them deal with the energy “challenge”, with specific focus to be placed on the construction of power plants which create 9600mW of nuclear energy by 2023. Greenpeace International’s Rainbow Warrior arrived on South Africa’s shores a few days prior to SONA 2015 in the hope of raising awareness towards the government’s plans, and the debate is hotter than ever as to whether or not nuclear power is both economically and environmentally viable. Proponents for nuclear energy argue that with proper management, nuclear power can effectively meet South Africa’s power needs; but given Eskom’s history of inadequate management, questions are raised by green activists as to whether or not this will lead to further disasters. Greenpeace is touring the South African shores in an effort to reduce what they consider to be major fallacies in the renewable vs. fossil fuel debate. They are arguing that renewable energy has the ability to provide the base load energy capacity for the country, which is the amount of energy required by the country on a day-to-day basis, prior to the start-up of major energy consumers. This requires a shift from a “big centralised grid system”, which is described as “old-fashioned, inflexible and unable to easily follow demand fluctuations”. Greenpeace also considers the long-term economic benefits of renewable energy, such as a longer life cycle of technology as well as the difference in the price of fuel – the cost of mining uranium for nuclear energy versus free energy from the sun or wind. Furthermore, renewable energy farms take two years to build, versus an estimated 15 years for nuclear energy. Private sector investment has driven the renewable energy roll-out in South Africa. The bidding began in 2011, and to date $14 billion has been invested, and the competitive market has driven the price of materials for solar and wind energy down by 68 and 42 percent respectively. Furthermore, nuclear energy is not perceived as being safe. In 1990 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) introduced the International Nuclear and Radiolog-
ical Event Scale (INES) to rate the magnitude and intensity of nuclear accidents. Today, two nuclear accidents have received the highest rating, Level 7; Major Accident. Both accidents, in the Ukraine (Chernobyl) and Japan (Fukushima), were found to be caused by a series of manmade errors. The accidents and following radioactive exposure to humans and the environment has been associated with numerous health risks such as thyroid cancer. Chernobyl and the surrounding villages have been largely abandoned since the disaster in 1968, which directly caused 31 deaths. An independent commission investigating the disaster blamed it on a combination of both human and design error, which together point towards a lack of a “culture of safety” at all levels. Japan revealed in 2013, more than two years after the Fukushima incident, that the plant was still leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean. Design failure and a lack of meeting basic safety requirements were once again both found to be the cause. South Africa currently has one nuclear power station, Koeberg, which was completed in 1985, consisting of two reactors with a combined energy output of 1800 mW. Since the Fukushima disaster, Eskom owned Koeberg was re-evaluated for safety and found to be well-designed and robust. As of yet, Koeberg has not experienced any nuclear accidents and supplies power to most of the Western Cape. Since 1985, multiple attempts at increasing nuclear power outputs have become failed projects, including the controversial Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, which fell flat in 2010. This was largely due to starkly inaccurate estimates of the cost of nuclear energy expansion, as it was found that the project would cost an estimated R40-billion. In 2008, Eskom cost the economy an estimated R50-billion through load shedding, and predictions for the current load shedding schedule rest at around R134-billion. Advocates for nuclear energy argue that perceptions of nuclear energy are skewed by the rare disasters which have made world history, as it is clear from examples such as Koeberg that nuclear energy can be safe. In December 2014 the South African government signed framework agreements to build an entire “fleet” of 6-8 nuclear reactors, a plan formulated by the government and Eskom, along with the United States, South Korea, Russia, France, and China. This project will cost upward of R1-trillion and give power to 22% of the country but only begins in 2023 meaning that there are few solutions to help fix the energy crisis in South Africa.
CTG
april 2015
news
The ISIS
Appeal I
lisa berkman reveals the reality behind the support for ISIS.
n recent months, the media has become ridden with horror stories of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The new menace of the Middle East has already spread from Syria to Iraq and continues to reach for new territory. Images of weapon stock-piles and clips of executed journalists flood our television screens. Thousands are being murdered in cold blood, and the world is in shock. We are left wondering why ISIS has grown to such an extent since its inception. Simply put, ISIS did not appear out of nowhere. Given the everpresent terrorism in these countries. ISIS did not take the Middle East by surprise. In Syria the al-Assad regime, controlled by an Alawite minority, is often regarded to have orchestrated the worst genocide in history since Nazi Germany. The Sunni majority in Syria suffered under the barbaric practices of al-Assad’s government for years. At the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey began providing financial assistance to internal rebel groups. Their move was a strategic one, as destabilizing Syria meant weakening a key ally of Iran and Hezbollah. The Gulf States were not alone in their subversive endeavors, however. The U.S. with the hope of making new allies from the Arab Spring, contributed by supplying aid and covert arms training. Even al-Assad himself supported ISIS in the hope of undermining the Free Syrian Army. In the context of a despised ruling elite, it was easy to fight under the banner of freedom. But such martydom was not without its pretext of religious indoctrination. It was ISIS’s staunch opposition to al-Assad’s imposed secularism that helped fuel the revolutionary fire. By 2013, it had seized territories in central and northern Syria, and established strict Sharia law at every turn. Iraq, on the other hand, goes back to the post-9/11 fever, shrouded in the notorious ‘War on Terror’. Iran and the U.S. immediately after overthrowing Sadam Hussein in 2003, grabbed the most cooperative and some say corruptible politician available and offered him their unilateral support. This man was Nouri al-Maliki. He was seen by many as a good puppet; obedient, conservative, and opposed to everything Hussein backed. This included Sunni power. Considering the fact that the majority of Iraq’s population is Shia, al-Maliki’s policies appeared to be a progressive step toward equality. But it wasn’t long until his acts of democratic good will turned into something far more sinister. Sunnis were soon not merely stripped of their privilege, but systematically excluded. It was during this time that al-Qaeda, the parent organization of ISIS, became popular among the marginalized. Sunnis became restless
The Cape Town Globalist
Image: Boris Niehaus
for change. By the time ISIS arrived in Iraq, the region was ripe for revolution. ISIS has thus been a source of redemption for many. It does not simply intend to lay waste to everything it conquers, but is, for some people, a developmental organization which wishes to restore Sunni power. As mere spectators, it is easy to blame the mob mentality of religious blindness. It is easy to demonize the terrorists. It is far more difficult, however, to see why so many people would support them. These are not just a few trigger-happy militants. ISIS is, after all, a people’s movement. Like all terrorist organizations, it relies on local support – and it has been growing for good reason. It provides Sunni pride in a Shia dominated region and financial support to people who may have very little else. Religious extremism, though central to its tenants, is often secondary for many of ISIS’s supporters.
It is easy to demonize the terrorists. It is far more difficult, however, to see why so many people would support them. ISIS, a powerful and dangerous terrorist organization, is growing rapidly. It is concerning, to say the least. But what is being done? Take a look at the news. Foreign powers are creating alliances, executing military operations, and broadcasting public statements. What else can one expect? It has become our knee-jerk response, our standard policy of ignorance. For years, the world has targeted the symptom of an underlying illness, and wondered why it has not gone away. This is the fundamental flaw of the War on Terror. If there is hope for peace, it is not with more bombs. It is not through more bloodshed. Even if ISIS is defeated, another terrorist group will inevitably take its place. The same old policies will only breed the same old results. We must instead look at the deeper problem. Terrorism isn’t just a mass religious psychosis. Its methods are ones of violence and extremism, yes, but its roots lay in poverty and oppression. This is an important discrepancy. Terrorism cannot be defeated with mere military strategy. Organizations like ISIS must first be made obsolete by providing local communities with better alternatives for social and economic welfare. It is time for change. The blindly aggressive mentality has to end. The world needs to approach terrorism in a more sophisticated manner for progress to be possible. It is a complex and strenuous road, no doubt. But it is a journey that is long overdue. CTG
LISA BERKMAN
is third year Bachelor of Social Science student. 11
news
SONA 2015 hilary price looks back at this year’s State of Nation Address
F
or South Africans, the State of the Nation address on 12 February was a dramatic start to the year. Frantic tweeting, Facebook posts, news articles, and blogging in the aftermath reflected the passionate debate and analysis on everything from fashion, to the nature of our democracy, to the rule of law, to the point where few remember what President Zuma said in his address. It was a night for statements, political and otherwise. Several MPs made fashion statements on the red carpet before the address while the Democratic Alliance (DA) MPs boycotted this by symbolically dressing in all black, loudly proclaiming that, “The State of the Nation is not about fashion.” After that, the event took a more serious turn. Outside of Parliament; police used water cannons to disperse spectators and protesters, as well as arrested the DA spokesperson and Cape Metro Chair. Inside Parliament, things were no more promising. It was discovered that a jamming device was blocking all cell phone signals, preventing live media updates. According to a 2001 ICASA regulation, such a device is illegal. Chants of “bring back the signal” and other demands to the same effect by MPs prompted the Speaker for the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, to send a secretary to investigate the matter. A few minutes later, she announced that “the issue of the scrambler has been unscrambled”. It is impossible to know if this was a deliberate ploy against media freedom, as some have suggested, but state security has since apologized, claiming it was an operational error and blamed an anonymous intelligence official. This was not to be the last time state security’s role and authority in this parliamentary event was questioned.
The most controversial of his statements was a proposal for a bill that would make it illegal for foreigners to own land in South Africa.
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As a result of these disruptions the President began his address almost an hour later than scheduled. He had just began his speech when, in contravention with protocol, members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) raised points of order, one by one, only to be overruled by the Speaker. EFF members demanded to know when the President would “pay back the money”, referring to the state funded upgrades to his Nklanda homestead. The Speaker ordered the MPs to leave and when they refused she called in parliamentary service officers and security officers to escourt them out. Many were shocked when officers in white shirts, some of them allegedly armed, filed into Parliament and forcibly removed the MPs. Fist fights broke out as the MPs resisted and several EFF members were injured. Thereafter, ANC parliamentarians were seen applauding and the President was heard laughing. In protest to what they (and many others) felt was illegal and against
the spirit of our constitutional democracy, the DA walked out. More recently, the DA has taken the matter before the Western Cape High Court, challenging the constitutionality of the act, which it turns out, is currently legal under the Powers Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act. Many have questioned the constitutionality of the police’s presence in the legislature and the Speaker’s right to call security to remove the MPs. The criticism levelled at the Speaker and the ANC has been severe. Speaking outside Parliament after his party’s forcible ejection, EFF leader Julius Malema stated, “It is a direct threat to democracy.” In a follow up debate, DA caucus leader, Mmusi Maimane, addressed President Zuma, stating: “You are a broken man, presiding over a broken society … You laughed. You laughed while the people of South Africa cried for their beloved country.” Parenthetically, it seems the ANC decided to test the DAs commitment to the moral high ground by mimicking the EFFs disruptive behaviour in the state of the province address in the Western Cape legislature. DA leader Helen Zille was eventually forced to table her speech when ANC members raised points of order and caused disruptions in a similar manner. Speaker Sharna Fernandez has explained to the media that she refrained from calling security to remove the disruptive members as she had been disturbed when it had occurred in Parliament. Once order was regained, the President was finally able to complete his address. According to Business Day, energy and land were the two main priorities of the address. Zuma committed the government to once again bailing out Eskom, with R23bn this financial year. While he emphasized the need for South Africa to increase its energy mix, including the exploiting of shale gas reserves in the Karoo through “fracking”, his main focus was on the further development of nuclear energy. This is despite the fact the National Planning Commission, among other bodies, having advised against nuclear energy as it is fast becoming outdated. Zuma stated that the government has signed intergovernmental agreements with US, South Korea, Russia, France and China. On the issue of land; he announced significant policy changes for land distribution. The most controversial of his statements was a proposal for a bill that would make it illegal for foreigners to own land in South Africa. He also mentioned the progress of land claims and proposed a land ownership ceiling of 12000ha. The ANC has reiterated these proposals following the conclusion of their three day national executive committee, stressing the need for government to act decisively on the issue of land redistribution. This bill throws into the light the tension in our constitution between commitments to socio-economic rights on the one hand, and civil political rights on the other; redistribution, and the principles of private property. Whether in dress, behavior or words, just about everybody made a statement at SONA. CTG
Image: The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa
HILARY PRICE
is an Honours student studying Justice and Transformation. april 2015
Human Movement Scalabrini: A Place of Hope by Alicia Chamaille
Global21
Contributions from London and Paris
The Islamic State
by Peter Beare
Andre’s Story
by Julia Lazar Chaskalson
How Long Will You Be Staying? by Zarreen Kamalie
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back by Nick Carson
The Evolution of Social Movements
Image: ©UNICEF Ethiopia
by Katharina Gensicke
The Cape Town Globalist
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Scalabrini
A Place of Hope N
Words and images by Alicia Chamaille
ow present in 24 nations, Scalabrini was founded by the Bishop of Piacenza - John Bapist Scalabrini - in 1887 to care for the welfare of the poor, the disadvantaged and migrants. The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town is no different. What started as just the Welfare and Development Programme with only a few classes has developed into daily lessons. This may not seem like much but is in fact quite the feat considering that employees and volunteers need to be sensitive to the traumas many of the immigrants have faced. Take hangman for example. A child’s game which can be used to develop a person’s spelling can lose all its innocents in heartbeat. It can serve as a harsh reminder of what the immigrant has left behind or bring back painful eyewitness memories.
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april 2015
The Cape Town Globalist
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Many immigrants come from wartorn countries around Africa where they have experienced impoverishment, maltreatment and anxiety due to feeling unwelcome within their own country. They flee, sometimes illegally, into places like South Africa in search of some stability and future. But once they arrive at their new safer place, they can face xenophobic attacks, unemployment and no aid from those who are able to give it.
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Scalabrini offers help and stability through their Welfare and Development Programmes as well as many other services. They have a legal team on board that offers advocacy and legal aid. Bursaries for school fees and even taxi fares as well as the onsite English classes are available. Their Employment Access Programme helps immigrants find skilled work which will help in socioeconomic integration. Their outreach programme does not stop there. Scalabrini also goes to schools and runs programmes that teach children about the dangers of xenophobia and how vital integration is to a safe society for all. CTG
The Cape Town Globalist
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Global 21
Cristina Orsini writes for The paris Globalist
The Paradox of Lampedusa If I speak of sun, crystalline waters, and culinary traditions on an island in the Mediterranean, your mind will probably indulge in warm, sweet thoughts about summer holidays. If I say “Lampedusa”, you will probably think about (im)migration, nameless bodies sinking in the depths of the sea, and your stomach might produce a feeble feeling of discomfort in light of a repeated tragedy that seems to have no solution. The recent history of Lampedusa indeed touches upon some of the most important issues related to what is today often referred to as “illegal” migration to Europe. In the last decade, Lampedusa has been the first European soil touched by more than 150,000 migrants; it has been the theater of clashes between migrants and local inhabitants, but also of joint protests against the Italian government. Lampedusa has also seen militarized border control, managed by Frontex, the European border agency. Over a year after the death of 500 African migrants in October 2013, Frontex’s new border protection operation, “Triton”, is being implemented in Lampedusa. Unlike previous programs, Triton does not provide for search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, leaving nothing but grim prospects for the future of migrants. At the same time, Lampedusa has been the theater of six yearly editions of the “festival of migration and of the retrieval of oral history”, Lampedusa in Festival. The festival is a contest for filmmakers who want to depict migration in a way that reverses stereotypes and brings the migrant back in the picture - not as a body among several on the waters of the Mediter-
ranean, but as an individual with a history, fears, and hopes. In the very place where migration has become primarily connected with riots, security problems, and death, this festival wants to promote an image of migration that does not articulate itself in the dialectical opposites of the foreign and the local, the outside and the inside; who belongs and who is not welcome. Along with the submitted movies, the festival gives space for music, installation art, and debates within its very diverse audience, which includes students, journalists, musicians and activists. Movies do not need to focus on Lampedusa itself. For example, the documentary “The land between” covers the physical and mental preparation of migrants attempting to cross the metal net that divides the Moroccan territory from the Spanish city of Melilla. Indeed, a documentary about migrations in Lampedusa today would be one without migrants. The reception center of Lampedusa is currently empty, as migrant boats are stopped at sea and directed towards other reception centers in Sicily and southern Italy. Lampedusa has, indeed, become subject to alternating “reception” policies, which vary according to the political strategies of the government in charge in Italy and in Brussels. For example, the flux of boats reaching Italy’s shores strongly declined when Rome promised Gaddafi a steady purchase of gas and oil in exchange for a Libyan effort to prevent migrant boats from leaving the African coast of the Mediterranean... Continue reading at ctglobalist.com G21
Why There Should Be No State Borders.
Sam Parry
writes for The london Globalist
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The idea that nation and state should coincide has become a truism in the modern era. This truism however, is a fallacy. This concept is actually a relatively new one, deriving from the French Revolution. Modern nationalism is not possible without a strong state apparatus that binds society together through education, national museums and conscription. This idea of a nation, which is usually used in order to justify closed borders is itself imagined due to the fact that this community is not, and cannot be based on face-to-face interaction between its members. The fact that it is imagined does not mean that national identity is unimportant, however, it draws attention to the fact that national sovereignty is not an infallible idea and that a new community based on the inclusivity of all can be imagined. This is becoming more and more possible due to the growing connectivity between people across state borders. I believe that understanding the origins of our current society can help us shape the future society we wish to live in. Morally, there can be no justification for closed borders. It has been accepted as a principle that we should not discriminate against others due to morally arbitrary factors such as ethnicity and gender. We should also see nationality as a morally arbitrary factor. Nobody decides which nation they are born into, it is in fact a lottery. Those of us that are citizens in the West have won this lottery, which gives us the modern equivalent of feudal privilege – an inherited status that greatly improves one’s own life chances. It seems absurd that something outside of our control can have such a great impact in determining the rest of our lives. If we are determined to keep borders closed, at the very least we need a globally progressive tax system in order to equalise opportunities between states.
Globalisation has brought many benefits to society which includes a sharing of culture and world views however; globalisation has taken place in a very asymmetrical way. Many multi-national companies have disengaged from any linkage with national origins thus becoming fully independent of any state control. These MNC’s may have become ‘true citizens of the world.’ What I propose is a widening of these rights to citizens as well. The idealistic way of doing this would be through the effacement of nation-states which would inherently mean the elimination of national borders. This is genuine globalization in comparison to the sham we currently have. The effacement of nation-states will not happen overnight, if at all but for the time being, there are some concrete suggestions, raised by David Graeber that we could use to improve the lives of many citizens across the globe. For example, we could cancel all patents and intellectual property rights related to technology that are more than a year old. This would help many states to leave the poverty trap due to their lack of technological capabilities. This could be funded in a very similar way to Thomas Pogge’s Health Impact Fund; there would be a pool of money to be shared out dependent on the impact of specific technological advances that would usually be patented. This would harness the capitalistic desire for profit in a way that is beneficial to society at large. Perhaps more importantly would be the elimination of all restrictions on global freedom of travel or residence. If citizens of poorer nations could relocate to the USA or Germany, these governments would find nothing more important than finding ways to make sure these people preferred to stay in their countries of origin. The motive behind helping these poorer nations may be regrettable but there is no denying it would have a huge positive impact on the lives of these people. Continue reading at ctglobalist.com G21 april 2015
The Islamic State – How Close is the End?
HUMAN MOVEMENT
PETER BEARE looks into the current status of ISIS.
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he continued expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has prompted movement on a global scale. Viewing the Caliphate (ISIS) as a terrorist organization that does not represent Islam as a whole, sixty nations have formed a coalition to counter ISIS. One of the aims of this coalition is to carry out the war on ISIS by proxy, which entails supporting a local moderate force through training and arms supplies. While the Iraqi and Syrian armies would be reasonable choices for this support, neither has proved suitable. The Syrian army has been an active participant in President al-Assad’s violent suppression of the country’s rebellion, prompting worldwide condemnation. The United States of America, for example, had begun bombing Syrian installations when ISIS first developed into a regional power. As a result, open support of the al-Assad regime is not acceptable – thus rendering the Syrian military a non-viable ally. The Iraqi army, while being a politically acceptable group to support, has been decimated by Islamic State forces over the course of several conflicts last year. It has yet to recover, leaving the coalition without enough local moderate forces on the ground to counter ISIS. Locally, the only significant military opposition to the Caliphate’s movements has been the Kurdish nationalist armies. Although considered to be affiliated to terrorist activity by the West, the Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Iraqi Peshmerga forces have presented considerable obstacles to the expansion of ISIS. Since October 2014, both have been receiving air support from U.S. troops. The conflict between the Kurdish troops and Islamic State militants results from a mandate of the law under which ISIS is governed which implies that the Caliphate wage war on all countries not ruled by those considered by the movement to be observant Muslims. This subsequently has led to the rapid growth of the Caliphate’s borders thus threatening Kurdish territory enough to provoke retaliation. This particular mandate makes the prediction of ISIS strategy easier, as the Caliphate is required to expand incessantly thus leaving its troops spread widely and fighting on several fronts. The severe expansion has taken its toll on ISIS’s fiscal and military resources, with conscription reportedly in effect within occupied cities such as Mosul, Iraq. Those recruited are trained alongside foreign nationals like ‘Jihadi John’ (the nickname given to the British man appearing in many ISIS videos of beheadings) and are deployed to fight against Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish forces. With the development of ISIS, a major concern arose around the aforementioned foreign nationals –the potential that these individuals could receive training within the ranks of the Islamic State and return to perform acts of terror in countries they are permitted residency. Such a situation has not developed, because of another key mandate of early Islam enforced by ISIS. By law, all “observant” Muslims around the world must pledge allegiance to, and take up residence in, the Caliphate. This is, for the most part, permanent – Muslims are flooding into ISIS across the porous border it shares with Turkey, but it is one-way The Cape Town Globalist
traffic. With many of his most ardent supporters massed within ISIS occupied territory, Caliph al-Baghdadi’s military action is only focused on local, rather than global, strategy. It is worth noting that ISIS propaganda is by no means under the same restriction. This, however, raises an important question: what of Charlie Hebdo, and the attack in Copenhagen? It can be argued that these were isolated events, undertaken by individuals aligned to the ideals of ISIS movement– but not on behalf of the movement itself. If this was the case, ISIS would have laid claim to its followers’ actions on a much broader public platform, as with Jihadi John. It appears as if the immigration of Muslims from around the world is the Islamic State’s key concern, which is in line with Sharia law that is applied upon the declaration of a Caliphate.
The Caliphate state seems immovable.
Much like this mandate, the majority of Sharia law is inactive until realized by the declaration of a Caliphate. In applying full Sharia law directly, the Islamic State has undertaken an ideological movement back to the principles of early Islam – a movement that emanates from the seventh century. This all-encompassing move defines the society and its governance in every aspect, including economic activity, healthcare and the legal structure in addition to other aspects of the societal composition. It is common to mistake Sharia for a penal code, given its application in countries such as Saudi Arabia - which follows the directive to cut off a thief’s hand as well as behead murderers, but not the healthcare system, for example. These measures may appear severe to Western society, but they are rooted in the meticulous study of texts that form the core of Islam. Within these texts are the mandates on expansion and immigration mentioned above. In realizing this religious commitment, al-Baghdadi has committed ISIS to an ideological and social movement that dates back thirteen hundred years. Despite movements against, around and within the Caliphate the state seems immovable. The laws, societal norms and military strategies that define the Islamic state are clearly defined and strictly applied. It is important to view this from two perspectives: firstly, this course of action, objectively assumed in the minds of the Caliph and his followers, is justifiable and indeed expected of them by their interpretation of Islam, although not the case in reality for the majority of the world’s Muslims. Secondly, in the modern world, factors exist that will most likely not have been accounted for by the earliest members of the Islamic faith. Where these arise, the rigidity offered by the ISIS ideology, often its greatest strength – may just as well be its downfall. However, at present the likelihood of an ISIS disintegration in the near future is small. Thus the Kurds, Syrians, Iraqis, Americans, and other members of the global coalition against the movement are in for another long and difficult war in the volatile environment that is the Middle East. CTG
Image: Khaled Abukhalefa
Peter Beare
is a fourth year Chemical Engineering student
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HUMAN MOVEMENT
Andre’s Story:
The Narrative of a Congolese Refugee Andre is a car guard in Newlands, Cape Town. But Andre has travelled hundreds of kilometers to be here today. His journey is not unlike many other men living from the Democratic Republic of Congo. julia lazar chaskalson speaks to Andre and tries to understand his story.
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work at a café in Newlands. Customers often greet me like a friend, but I do not usually remember their faces. There is one person who I always recognise. The small, stocky, capped man stands outside and ushers cars into tricky parallel spaces. He wears a yellow high visibility vest over suit shirts. His name is Andre. He is quiet, and smiles widely. The staff of the café are friendly with him. He arrives before we do, and leaves after sunset everyday. I learn that he is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I then start greeting him in French, and chat with him more often, for which I received more wide smiles. We drink tea together before the first customers arrive. I ask him shallow questions about why he is here, to which he replies formulaic answers. “I came looking for work”. “I hoped my life would be better”. For a long while, we leave it at that. 30 June, 1960. After over seventy years of brutal colonial administration, The Congo is granted independence from Belgium and is named a Democratic Republic. Seventeen African states are granted independence from European countries that year. Three months later, in the south-eastern province of Katanga, Andre Mukadi Muyemba is born. He is born into a period of joy, but the decades of his life that follow chart some of the most agitated and bloody decades of unrest on the continent. What precedes this is a traumatic history. Diamonds, copper, rubber, and an abundance of hardy slaves had made the Congo one of the shiniest toys for European magpies in the 19th century. In the 1884 Berlin conference, Africa was divided like cake to children, and the Congo was given to Belgian King Leopold II. Under altruistic guises of “civilisation”, Leopold caused countless horrific deaths of Congolese. Making sense of the DRC’s history is confusing, and difficult to condense. The US and other Western powers flipflop between rival groups according to whom best serves their interests. Central Africa heaves at itself. Patrick mentions the names of innumerable rebel groups and army generals from around the region who loot natural resource rich areas, backed by armies of kadogo, or child soldiers. By 1998, over five million Congolese people have been killed and over one million have fled. More than 40,000 people every month die of hunger or treatable diseases and rape has become commonplace. Social infrastructure remains minimal in the midst of on-going cataclysm. During the Mobutu regime – where many Congolese go 20
hungry or homeless – Andre finishes school. He studies electrical engineering in Kinshasa, and trains as a technician. He is proud of this job. He is also actively involved with the Protestant church. In 1994, during the Rwandan civil war, over 800,000 Hutus – an ethnic majority – are killed in one hundred days by Tutsis. Attacks and counterattacks ravage the tiny country east of the DRC. Bloodstains from this war trickle over the border. Refugees bolt towards the DRC, seeking reprise from violence, but aggressive militias shadow them. Andre has the physical appearance of a Tutsi, despite being from Kasaien. Amidst all the confusion and violence, side-taking and side-breaking, Tutsis in the DRC become the subject of mistrust. Andre is arrested, questioned and attacked by authorities and locals. He is afraid for his family – a wife and four children. They have to leave. During the journey, his wife and children get reinstalled to Norway by the UN refugee services. Andre has to say goodbye over the phone. He hasn’t seen them for nearly ten years. After some time, Andre ends up in Cape Town and settles alone in Phillipi East, in an area called Crossroads. Apparently, whenever a new Congolese refugee arrives, the diaspora community tries its best to integrate them and find them work. A while later, Andre gets his first job as a parking guard. Andre now works independently in Newlands. He does not get a wage. He is bitter. Back home, only chaja or illiterate rural people would do such menial work. Andre has a university degree. Like many foreign Africans living in the country, he feels pain that his skills are wasted, and that he is unable to contribute meaningfully to society. 14 May, 2008. Andre remarries another Congolese woman. Two weeks after the marriage, some of the worst xenophobic attacks that South Africa has ever seen break out in Johannesburg, and then proliferate throughout the country. Local South Africans attack foreign Africans, loot their businesses, and burn their homes. Refugees are thrown off trains and buses; others are doused in petrol. An unrelenting mob psychology spreads throughout the disenfranchised areas of the country. The country collectively has a sharp intake of breath: to gasp in horror, to scream, or in an angry bellow. Refugees have the right to work, move and be educated in South Africa. There are approximately 65,000 documented refugees in the country. Roughly 16,000 of this number are Congolese. Refugee law protects the safety of persons, property and life of refugees and asylum seekers april 2015
HUMAN MOVEMENT in our country. This is not enough. Andre remembers the time fearfully. They are evacuated to a catholic church on the N1 with 500 other refugees from Crossroads during the two peak months of attacks. Their movements are restricted, and conditions are poor. His wife is highly traumatised, and for a long while, will not speak to Andre. When the attacks subside, she chooses not to live with him. He won’t tell me why. Perhaps he doesn’t know. Andre tells of horrifying police incompetency and cruelty to him. Recently his house was broken into. His landlords have extorted money from him. Very little seems to be heard by the authorities from the mouths of foreigners. Police officers are blatantly disinterested. It is a recurring tale. But what Andre tells me next is bizarre to me. He is very religious, and a trained pastor. Andre has started a ministry, the headquarters of which are on a train. Every day he takes a train from Khayelitsha to Cape Town station and from there to Newlands. He sits on the same carriage at the same time each day, and preaches to a congregation of regular passengers. The demographics of his congregation are mixed: some foreign, some local. While he is concerned with spirituality, Andre says that he tries to devote most of his sermons to issues of tolerance and hospitality. Where seven or eight years ago, these trains were the setting for xenophobic tragedy, Andre has created a mobile unit of transient transformation. Travelling to and from the affluent urban areas of the city, black South Africans and foreign Africans come together at the end of long days. There is something moving about the spontaneity of
The Cape Town Globalist
this. In a city where poor people are forced to the dusty periphery, here there is some inclusion or solidarity – or a semblance of it at least. This is why Andre emphasises to me that refugees bring more than just luggage and trauma with them when they arrive in a foreign country. He stresses the need for sharing of skills and knowledge. He knows the pain of growing up in a country that is progressively being destroyed by greed, corruption and violence. He doesn’t want the same to happen here, he tells me and his locomotive congregation. He wants to build a school of integration. It would be called Malu Mimpe, which means welfare, or “all is well” in Tshiluba. He envisions an integrated group of foreign and local adults. He would teach English, physics and maths. Another Congolese friend could instruct basic computer skills. Andre even has some old computers, but they need repairs. Andre’s story is inextricable from many histories, which are all tied into a chaotic, violent mess of post-colonial experience on the continent. Andre can recount to me incredibly accurate timelines of Congolese history. When I ask him more personal questions about those places and dates, about what he saw and what he felt, his sentences become punctuated with longer silences. During our interview process, I contact the UCT Refugee Rights Centre and send Andre’s story to an attorney there. The attorney consults with him a few days later. He says they are going to try and organise travel documents for him, possibly to get to Norway and see his children. He’s meeting again with the attorney in a few weeks time. He knows it’s a long process, but it’s some slight movement in the right direction. CTG
Image: Jodocus Hondius (L) Julien Harnels (R)
JULIA LAZAR CHASKALSON
is a second year Bachelor of Arts student majoring in English, Economic History and Gender Studies.
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HUMAN MOVEMENT
How long will you be staying? Image: Sebastian Backhaus
zarreen kamalie looks at the impact of civil wars on the current refugee crisis.
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f you took a walk past the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, chances are high that numerous Syrian women and children with stories of flight and tragedy would approach you. As of the start of the year, Syria has surpassed Afghanistan as the number one source of refugees, with the civil war continuing to ravage the country. With the ongoing conflict in Syria, as well as increased activity from The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in both Iraq and Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that at least 3.7 million refugees came from these conflict hotspots alone. Not forgetting the continuing presence of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the thousands who have fled to neighbouring North African countries. The question arises as to how these neighbouring countries in North Africa and the Middle East cope with the heavy influx of refugees whilst facing their
Although many Western states have been generous enough to give financial aid, many still remain reluctant in opening their borders. 22
own domestic challenges. Should these countries start to look at the development of infrastructure for the long haul? And if so, why are they hesitating at the thought of it? Currently, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are the biggest receptors of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The United States of America has just begun reviewing around 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria, estimating roughly a thousand new ones each month for this year alone. Although many Western states have been generous enough to give financial aid, many still remain reluctant in opening their borders. The Lebanese government has left its borders open but refuses to open camps to host refugees. Instead, about half of the refugees live in rented housing, while the other half are in nomadic camps, hosted by families and/or local communities living mainly in impoverished areas where services are already under severe strain. Turkey recently issued new regulations that grant Syrian refugees secure legal status in the country for the first time, clarifying and expanding rights for those who are rapidly assimilating into Turkish society. However, the regulation does not grant Syrians official refugee status,
april 2015
HUMAN MOVEMENT
Image: Linh Nguyen
which would entitle them to a broader array of benefits such as housing, public relief and social services. The continuing influx of refugees has put strain on the job market and social services such as education and healthcare in host countries, thus raising tensions between the local communities and the refugee populations. State administered development initiatives such as infrastructural investment in healthcare, education and job creation have the benefit of strengthening state capacity, relieving tensions and, at the same time, addressing the refugees’ needs. However, Lebanese authorities have expressed their reluctance to invest in the development of refugee allocated infrastructure in fear that it would create the incentive for them to stay permanently. Although over US$77 million in aid from European and Persian Gulf states has been channelled through the UNHCR, the situation remains bleak. Lebanon currently stands with an estimated population of 4.2 million, 25 percent of whom are refugees. The response to their needs has been massive underfunding. The situation in North Africa is similar in the sense that millions of dollars in humanitarian aid has been given to UNHCR led programmes. Since 2012, total requirements for the North African sub-region have been set at US$ 180.4 million for refugee programme alone. This year UNHCR will continue to support building up the capacity of local authorities in countries such as Algeria and Morocco as they establish national asylum infrastructure following the contingency plan with Egypt and Tunisia after fighting in Libya resumed mid-2014. It has become a depressing predicament where aid seems to disintegrate as quickly as it came. Tensions between refugees and locals could reach dangerous levels if infrastructural needs are not met in time. Another factor that affects the relationships between locals and refugees is the common misconception of the nature of the refugees. The Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford released a report mid-last year titled “Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions”. The report identified these assumptions about refugees as those that The Cape Town Globalist
The influx of refugees has put strain on the job market and social services in host countries, thus raising tensions between the local communities and the refugee populations. are “economically isolated [and] homogenous”, “a burden” and “dependent on humanitarian assistance”. The Refugee Studies Centre highlighted the significance of intra-settlement networks that refugees create among their fellow nationals, and its contribution to the host economy and global trade network. The report casts light on the agency of settled refugees within Uganda who have managed to reclaim their lives when given the opportunity to do so. In Jordan, a 48-year old Syrian man, Abu Mahmood, has found a way to provide for his family within the Za’atari refugee camp through his new-found pizza delivery business. Mahmood and his family have been in the camp since late 2012. His example implies that the possibility of a full integration into the Jordanian society and economy is possible. The problem itself lies with poor infrastructure and the reluctance of governments to development existing features for fear that it would encourage a greater influx of Syrian refugees or encourage them to stay permanently. American international affairs magazine “The National Interest” has identified the latest massive refugee crisis as a significant tool in uniting world efforts as well as a “long-term development challenge”. As previously mentioned, the development of infrastructure, the job market and social services should not be seen as an extended burden but rather a step forward in a country’s own national development. It has been estimated that the Syrian conflict could take up to seventeen years to resolve and if that is anything to go by, then the Lebanese, Jordanian, and Egyptian governments need to reconsider their approach to the refugee situation. CTG
ZARREEN KAMALIE is a 3rd year Bachelor of Social Science student majoring in International Relations and Social Anthropology
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HUMAN MOVEMENT
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back:
The Role of Technology in the Human Trafficking Industry
Image: Ira Gelb
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This is the era where anything can be sold online. Even people. nick carson investigates the impact technology has had on the human trafficking industry.
n an age where we fail to exhibit the maturity or presence of mind required to accompany rapid technological advancement, the products of our technological evolution are being exploited to perpetuate problematic industries in our society. A prime example of this is the role that the Internet plays in the human trafficking industry. Thus, how do we, as seemingly socially responsible human beings, eradicate factors within our society that make human trafficking more prominent and more easily accessible? Are we able to move ahead of the rapidly expanding web of global human trafficking? Human trafficking or “modern day slavery” (as it is branded today) has evolved into a more elusive form. The employment of modern technologies has enabled the industry to become more sophisticated, widespread and dangerous, leaving behind an obscure trail of digital footprints. Advancements in technology have enabled traffickers to expand their recruitment network across a multitude of international borders, and an escalating number of people are able to gain access to the products of the trade.
Human trafficking or “modern day slavery” (as it is branded today) has evolved into a more elusive form
nick carson
is a first year Bachelor of Social Science majoring in politics, philosohy, economic history and english
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Take the following example of what is happening in the blind spot of our everyday tool for social networking: social media. On a daily basis, people are being lured through platforms such as Facebook or Twitter where recruiters ‘befriend’ potential victims, manipulate them into meeting up with them, and then once the opportunity presents itself, the victims are trafficked into an area where they may be violently assaulted, emotionally traumatised and robbed. Another issue that arises is the continued infection of human trafficking in developing countries. Not only are the products of the industry particularly prevalent in these countries such as India and Cambodia, but very often the lack of information surrounding so-called “new media” places many individuals at a disadvantage. For one, there is a lack of education and regulation surrounding social media which exposes young people in particular to falling prey to traffickers. The prominence of government corruption in many developing countries only further contributes to an environment where trafficking can take place. For instance, the Cambodian government has been heavily criticised
for not doing enough to combat the prevalence of the human trafficking industry in the country. In addition, it has been uncovered that some law enforcement and government officials have been taking bribes to help facilitate the trafficking and sex trade. One might wonder how victims are so easily deceived when it comes to being roped into such an egregious practice. There are two main means through which this is achieved. The first entails traffickers posing as legitimate agencies whereby they advertise the needs for a service such as modelling or being a masseuse. Alternatively, it can be as seemingly innocent as offering a place in a ‘school’, having the parents send their children off to a supposedly beneficial environment, never to be seen again. The trafficking of individuals is not always for sexual exploitation. In Qatar, for instance, there have been reports of some traffickers using a manner of ‘social engineering’ to lure workers to the country, after which they have their passports taken away and are forced to continue to work there. Workers usually pay exorbitant recruitment prices and their wages are often either not paid or paid at irregular intervals. Whilst technology can be a tool used by individuals wishing to con people into giving up their money, labour and sometimes even their bodies it can also be used as a tool to prevent these occurrences. Technology is being created and refined in order to address misleading and deceitful advertisements on the Internet. For example, computational linguistics technology is in the process of being cultivated to try to distinguish genuine advertisements from those marketing the services of human slaves. Governments and organisations, need to collaborate more in order to broaden the scope for the circulation of important information. To further strengthen the scaffolding of the anti-trafficking project, there is a call for intercontinental, cooperative search for traffickers. However, this can prove to be difficult as the information may never reach the victims. What moves governments to make policy changes is a call from the public. They create social attention and exert pressure on governments to adopt stricter policies and to allocate more resources towards combating the issue. Another - perhaps more ingrained – issue which has been seen as a driver of trafficking is the objectification of sexuality in our everyday social interactions and culture, especially the objectification of women. There is no easy answer to the plague that is human trafficking but there are ways in which individuals can come together to fight against this disregard for human life. CTG
april 2015
HUMAN MOVEMENT
The Evolution of Social Movements Katharina Gensicke looks at how social media has altered the nature of social movements.
S
ocial movements throughout history have consisted of masses of people uniting for specific causes for hundreds of years in different fashions. Marches, boycotts and campaigns of different kinds have occupied the History pages. There have been campaigns ranging from the anti-war movement, the famous Civil Rights movement as well as the anti-Apartheid boycotts and marches, amongst many more. They sought to change and influence the fight for freedom or to bring across a strong felt message. We as South Africans know about many social movements in the fight for our freedom such as the student protests, anti-apartheid newspapers and resistance movements to police violence and forced removals. The mass gatherings and displays of loyalty were a simple way of showing support and solidarity to the cause and they did indeed bring about much radical change. Social movements which were organised by means of word-of-mouth, newspapers, posters and radio were the norm. Yet those important events in our history and the famous mass social movements have had a drastic alteration in their form and in effect over the centuries. In 2004, Facebook was launched and Twitter duly followed in 2006. It was the game changer in society and irrevocably changed how we as people interact in relation to social events and information. They are platforms that many activists, governments, celebrities and ordinary citizens alike have and can use to convey information. The fast pace of life today means that we desire a quick, easy and relevant way to disseminate and gather information, which both Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to do. This is the start of a monumental social media movement in cyberspace moving away from the physical coming together of individuals as seen in the past. Many people have been caught up in at least one social media movement recently. The three movements which have captivated the world over the past two years were the “ALS Ice bucket Challenge”, “Je suis Charlie” and “Bring back our Girls” campaigns. The Ice Bucket Challenge in support of ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) was a social media movement started by Pete Frates and his friends and left many YouTube and Facebook newsfeeds teeming with videos of people pouring a bucket of ice water over their heads. It was a huge success in that support on the ALS social media sites was extraordinary. The Twitter followers increased by 146% from 9000 previous followers and the Facebook support was measured at an astounding 849% increase from 25 July to 15 September 2014. In total the ALS Foundation raised over US$114 million in donations. This can be seen as a mass social media movement that was essentially driven by just sharing a video and nominating your friends on Facebook and Twitter. “Je suis Charlie” and the famous “Bring Back our Girls” campaigns were very differently driven to the ALS Ice Bucket challenge. These campaigns were not primarily about awareness but were also a chance for people to
The Cape Town Globalist
show solidarity and remorse for these tragic events. On 23rd of April 2014, Oby Ezekwesil spoke up at a Nigerian government function demanding the release of the 219 (the definite number is still not known) Nigerian school girls that were kidnapped on the 15th of April 2014. By doing so Ezekwesil unofficially launched the “Bring Back our Girls” hashtag campaign that dominated Twitter newsfeeds and later moved onto Facebook as well. Users distributed pictures and quotes to identify themselves with the movement to free the school girls and a petition was signed urging the government to take action. This mass social media movement was sadly unsuccessful as the girls have not been released from the grip of the terrorist group Boko Haram and the government did not respond successfully to the more than a million re-tweets of the hashtag and the hundreds of thousands of media shares. Yet this event shows the enormous number of people who choose to use social media in cyberspace as a platform to raise awareness and pledge loyalty to a cause.
The mass gatherings and displays of loyalty were a simple way of showing support and solidarity to the cause
“I am Charlie” or better known as “Je Suis Charlie” is a recent social media phenomena. It began after the murder of twelve newspaper editors from the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” through an extremist group on the 7th of January 2015. It did not just attract the attention of many Internet users but also sparked peace marches and gatherings in the Place de la République in France near to the area of the incident, as well as in London, Berlin and many other parts of the world. This is evidence that the tradition of people physically coming together can be fuelled by social media outrage. At the centre of the protests was the ideal of freedom of expression, something which is at the heart of social media as many believe that these places are the spaces where they can express their opinions without censure. Social media is powerful, now more than ever. The movements in cyberspace are testimony to the speed and interconnectivity we have at our fingertips, where people millions of kilometres away from one another can connect and debate on almost any possible topic. The effectiveness of how people can show support, solidarity and express outrage at the world around them is evidence that social movements have evolved over time to become social media movements which very often just take place in cyberspace.
CTG
Image: Warren K Leffler
KATHARINA GENSICKE
is a first year student majoring in International Relations and Economic History.
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philosophy
The Great
Intellectual
Upsurge
E-learning is sweeping through the world and it may be the answer to ever increasing intelligence. rebecca rogers investigates.
E
-learning is in full swing, and it is about time we step back and evaluate it. It certainly has not changed information, 1 + 1 will (provided no radical mathematician intervenes) indefinitely equal 2. But, has e-learning succeeded in revolutionising the nature of education? Has it done anything in resolving the chief obstacles in learning: the accessibility of information, substandard teachers, the dearth of enthusiasm and curiosity among some students? Several generations into human history, we would consider those students who inevitably fell victim to the obstacles, to be of lesser intelligence. These detrimental assumptions that excluded a great portion of student potential were particularly prevalent in the pre-printing society – the transfer of knowledge was exclusively oral, and resources were strictly limited to the local availability. In other words, your teacher’s incompetence and flawed communication skills constituted the restriction
a girl who was using a prosthetic limb with an $80,000 (R963,000) pricetag, and henceforth devoted himself to abolishing that expense, making prosthetic limbs an option to even people in poor communities. With the aid of 3D printing, 3D modelling programmes, open source designs, LaChappelle has created a strong, light-weight, fully functional prosthetic arm that can be controlled with accuracy by means of an EEG (electroencephalogram) headband that measures brainwaves and translates them into motion – all this for about $500 (R6000). Easton LaChappelle is one of thousands of autodidacts world-wide who, as a consequence of just web-based, self-directed learning, would currently be considered genius. With the information of the world at his disposal, he could utilise cheap, educational resources without limits. And, if one source – the bad teacher – was inefficient in communicating the information, dozens more could be
on your knowledge. And even after William Caxton enlightened the world with the machine of a million hands, books were not the most convenient to access and you were still restricted to the pages available locally. Time and space existed at the core of educational obstacles. The ideal teacher who was considered at the apex of his career could have been an unfathomable distance away; Humanity was in need of something that defied the concept of space and time. Hence, cyber space was born. From its antecedent, packet switching (the transfer of block of data or packets between two networks) invented by Leonard Kleinrock 1969, the Internet is now estimated to store approximately 5 million terabytes of information. That is roughly the equivalent of 400 million Blue-Ray movies. What can be done with this much data? Consider nineteen-year-old Easton LaChappelle, a member of NASA’s Robonaut team. After tinkering with Lego with the intent of creating a robot hand at fourteen years, LaChappelle began to teach himself robotics by means of free online education sites such as Instructables. Later, he was confounded by
accessed with just a click of a mouse. With the payment of a reliable Internet connection an entire universe of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) is available to anyone. Growing to its optimum popularity in 2012 after conception in 2008, MOOCs allow both budding students and life-long learners to acquire more knowledge, almost completely free of charge. The only obstacle remaining now is the discipline required to muffle the myriad distractions – weblinks that are the gateways to procrastination. But is this obstacle really as insurmountable as it seems? What has existed since the start of social living has been perfected with the prevalence of online video websites such as TED-Ed and YouTube. This modern form called Crowd Accelerated Innovation (CAI) constitutes a revolutionary means of learning based on the Internet, and could be a reason for the global increase of IQ by 3 points every decade, or the Flynn effect. CAI is a cycle of three phases – Crowd, Light and Desire – that are best illustrated with an example. On 6 June 2012, Mitchel Moffit and Gregory Brown collaborated to release their very first YouTube clip. The global Crowd plunged
Initiatives like 50x15 launched by AMD, an American worldwide semiconductor organisation, aim to provide 50% of the world’s population with access to computers and internet.
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april 2015
philosophy
Image: PurchY0
in and, with over 850,000 views, over 8,500 likes and hundreds of positive comments, they shined the lime Light on the duo. AsapSCIENCE was born. Whereas the pair could have remained within their local environment and frantically fumbled for a couple thousand students over three years, through YouTube, Moffit and Brown they have garnered 3,642,324 subscribers across the globe as of 7 March 2015. That is 3,642,324 students who watch AsapSCIENCE’s videos and become intrigued, ask questions, and learn. Furthermore, teaching a topic is widely considered the best way of fortifying one’s own knowledge, and, as a result, every video is a just as great a learning curve for the publishers as it is for the viewers. Having just one person listen attentively and respond favourably is real nice as it is, but over 3 million viewers? That is quite the ego boost. It thus nurtures the desire to keep publishing more and more videos for eager learners, hereby reinitialising the CAI cycle. However, desire is also created amongst the viewers. Inspired by the greatness they witness online, they aspire to release their own videos, to become teachers in their own right. The result is an endless stream of web video hosts: VSauce, Kurz Gesagt, JAZZEDGE, CGP Grey, Numberphile… Even restrictions on the prevalence of technology in destitute, third-world countries will gradually cease to be a problem, especially with initiatives like 50x15 launched by AMD, an American worldwide semiconductor organisation, which aims to provide 50% of the world’s population The Cape Town Globalist
with access to computers and internet. Are there any true disadvantages to e-learning? Some may aggressively rant about the spectrum of cancers that could occur due to continuous exposure to the lowfrequency radiation of computers, but frankly, computer radiation is a refreshing splash compared to the onslaught of UV waves of sunlight. A more significant counter-argument would concern the loss of memory due to a lack of necessity for it in modern society. MOOCs, online videos, and the Internet at large comprises a wealth of cheap, high quality and easily accessible information, so why bother memorising it? Over fifty psychological and scientific researchers concede that intelligence is defined as the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas quickly and learn from experience. It excludes the capacity to regurgitate information, which would otherwise imply that intelligence is subject to context, whereas it should be absolute and rigid in definition. However, rigidity is not a factor of intelligence. In the words of Socrates, “What is specific to human beings is their great ability to adapt.” The advent of the e-learning generation heralds evolution in, above all, the rate at which humans learn. Retaining random facts requires brain power, and excluding it reduces the intellectual burden on the brain, liberating it to deal with more challenging, more stimulating problems which will invariable serve a greater purpose to society than random facts. Elearning is thus possibly the next Darwinian step for humans. CTG
REBECCA ROGERS
is a first year MBChB student.
27
science
When Ebola is just plane ride away Globalisation and the spread of disease are unfortunate bedpartners. tatjana baleta compares Ebola to previous epidemics in human history.
W
hen Ebola hysteria hit its peak, people all over the world were rushing en mass to cancel their flights. Not just flights to West Africa, the origin and epicentre of the outbreak, but all of Africa, including completely unaffected countries such as Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. An infectious disease, however, has a higher impact than just paranoid travellers abandoning their holiday plans. Over time, diseases have shaped the history of the modern world, and human movement has in turn shaped the spread of them. Globalisation brings not only an exchange in goods and ideas but also, with the development of more efficient transport mechanisms, the movement of people. With them comes sicknesses. Cast your mind back to The Age of Exploration; as European colonisers spilled out of their continent in search of virgin land and resources to exploit, they brought not only a Christian God but also new diseases. When these illnesses were introduced to people from far flung lands, the effects were devastating –without any previous exposure over generations to develop antibodies to these diseases, indigenous people completely lacked any form of immunity or bodily defence, let alone knowledge of effective treatments. One such case is that of the “Conquistadores’ Disease” in South America during the 1500s; smallpox, measles and other diseases carried over the sea by the Spanish colonisers wiped out up to 90% of some indigenous populations. So significant was this destruction of life that many historians have accredited novel disease as one of the reasons Conquistador Hernàn Cortès and his paltry band of conquerors was able to defeat the immensely powerful Aztec empire. In this manner, the history of disease ties in closely with the shaping and history of human movement. HIV presents another example; the disease has turned, from humble beginnings in a group of non-human primates in West Africa, to the global epidemic that claims the lives of over a million people every year and affects countless more. By analysing the evolution of the genetic code of various strains of HIV, scientists were able to recreate the history of the virus. It began when the ancestor of the modern human HIV-1 made the jump from chimpanzee to human between 1884 and 1924 in South Eastern Cameroon, most likely due to a bushmeat hunter coming into contact with infected blood.
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Image: Laboratory Equipment
The virus circulated locally before arriving in Kinshasha around 1920. In the 40s and 50s the Belgian Congo was undergoing extensive urbanisation due to the colonial power’s development programmes intending to turn the territory into a “model country”. The building of new railway systems meant that each year over 1 million people were travelling through Kinshasha and other major countries in Central Africa. 1960 brought independence to the DRC and with it major political, social, and cultural changes. The ease of travel created high demand for the sex trade, which flourished. Combined with failed public health campaigns, the conditions were right for an uncontrollable spread of the disease. Fifty years later, the World Health Organisation estimates that 35 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS. As is the case with HIV, disease and stigma go hand in hand, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 10 000 is no different. In September last year in the village april 2015
science
Travel bans would prevent health workers from getting to the very places they are needed most.
of Womey, Guinea eight people who were visiting to teach about Ebola were murdered. On an international scale, governments have been criticised for unnecessarily quarantining returning health workers and proposing travel bans on West African countries. Bans could actually prove to be detrimental and counterproductive as they force commuters to find alternative means of travel through which they cannot be monitored for the disease and cause travel environments in which diseases could easily spread, for example packed buses. Additionally, travel bans would prevent health workers from getting to the very places they are needed most. Schools in Texas and Ohio were shut down after learning that staff and students had shared the Cleveland-Dallas flight with an Ebola patient, scientists and journalists returning from West Africa were uninvited to conferences and talks at universities and there have been reported instances of Ebola-related discrimination towards AfricanThe Cape Town Globalist
Bans could actually prove to be detrimental and counterproductive... Americans. As one CBS News article put it, “Ebola panic [is] spreading much faster than [the] disease in the US”. This international panic frenzy catalysed by the Ebola crisis points to a global tendency to eschew logic in the face of fear as well as the irrational stigma, “the fear of ‘the other’” that this panic produces. As humans, our movement and migration is entwined in the fabric of our history as a species. With an increasingly interconnected world, this means that when diseases affect the lives of the few there is potential for that issue to become the problem of many. It is impossible for affluent countries to ignore what is happening in third world nations; a disease cannot be cured by the world turning its back on it. CTG
TATJANA BALETA
is a Honours student in Medical Science specialising in Cell Biology
29
Art
The African Literary Diaspora
T
Is it possible for writers of the African diaspora to represent Africa accurately? azi mqatazana investigates.
he world of literature is big, not just big but unfathomably big. Literature plays an essential role in bringing our imaginations to the most exotic and very often completely imaginary places on this planet. In any kind of literature the reader is receiving a representation of something, whether this is a representation of reality or a fictional creation of the writer’s mind. Whatever this representation is, it is necessarily informed by the environment in which the writer finds themselves. In literature on the African diaspora, authors who are writing of their native country as well as their new place of residence, there can be a question of authenticity. This is the question of whether writers, particularly in fiction, who have left their native countries, have the capacity to provide a realistic depiction of life in Africa as they are immersed in a different culture all together. Do they have the capacity to write about significant events pertaining to their country of origin even though they are a million miles from these actual problems which they may be writing about? The African diaspora refers to different communities
Do some diasporic writers contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypes about Africa being intractable?
Image: Djembayz
AZI MQATAZANA
is a second year. student studying a Bachelor of Social Science majoring in Psychology and Law.
30
throughout the world that have people who are descended from historic movements out of Africa to other areas of the globe, predominantly Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East. The “new African Diaspora” are movements out of Africa in years after slavery and colonization mostly for economic, social or political reasons. Many of these writers have become incredibly successful writing about their “homeland”, for example people like Zoe Wicomb who has long left South Africa but continues to write novels in African settings such as You Can’t get Lost in Cape Town. In diasporic imaginations then, how is Africa really represented? Is it usually metaphorical or romanticized and is it even depicted in a realistic manner? In the eyes of an outsider is Africa still viewed as being trapped in a time marked by slavery and exploitation? Or is it seen as a place full of poverty and driven by corruption? For some these diasporic writers unwillingly contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypes about Africa being intractable. It is quite easy to argue that people far dispersed from Africa do not have the capacity to write novels about Africa. That people who have lived in Africa for all their lives are better prepared to write such novels. For any writer it is imperative to have a close bond or rather a personal
understanding with the issue or experience at hand. This is especially significant when writing about significant past events like Apartheid in South Africa or the Biafran War in Nigeria. These kinds of events have had a significant impact on people; and these people understandably very often feel the need for their country’s history to be respected. The work of African writers about African heritage has been known for its originality and vigour, and has unsurprisingly attracted the attention of scholars all over the world but can they be called “African writers” if they are residing in New York or Paris? Are they able to effectively portray life in Nigeria, Ghana or Kenya if they haven’t visited in years? Conversely, living on a different continent can indeed have its own advantages. What the writer living in New York writing about the Biafran war can do differently from the writer sitting in Lagos is remove themselves from their subject matter and gain perspective and create a novel which is more widely accessible. The experience that the writer has had on a different continent and the time that they spend abroad perhaps gives them a different view, not completely objective but most definitely very different, from that of their counterpart living in their country of origin. Many novels of the African diaspora speak of this movement, this dislocation from home and the difficultly in understanding their new “home”. This may be a reason why writers such as Zoe Wicomb, Chimamanda Adichie and NoViolet Bulawayo have award winning novels because of the international consciousness they have in their writing. One of the most important crossroads that people face is the need to attain self-understanding that is true to heritage and opportunity. As Okwui Enwezor said when writing of the African literary diaspora, “The formation of a diaspora could be articulated as the quintessential journey into becoming; a process marked by incessant regroupings, recreations, and reiteration. Together these stressed actions strive to open up new spaces of discursive and performative postcolonial consciousness.” There needs to be an understanding that authors of the African literary diaspora are writing from that perspective, they are no longer permanent residents of their home country and therefore cannot be held to the same standards as their counterparts in Africa. At the same time, they have a completely different perspective to give, their story of Africa is one infinitely altered and in any cases, enriched by this global perspective. CTG april 2015
The Centre for Film and Media Studies
Up on the hill, the Centre for Film and Media Studies offers full and part-time postgraduate courses, at the Hons and/or MA levels, in African Cinema, Documentary Arts, Film and Television Studies, Media Theory and Practice, Political Communication, Rhetoric Studies, Screenwriting and Television Drama. Across the country and the world, the Centre for Film and Media Studies partners with leading online education company, GetSmarter to offer continuing education online short courses to working professionals and amateurs. Having started with a course in Digital Photography in 2011, the partnership now offers courses across 7 disciplines: FEATURE WRITING COPY-EDITING
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For inquiries about our postgraduate programmes, www.cfms.uct.ac.za or contact Petros.Ndlela@uct.ac.za If you are interested in the short online courses, get hold of GetSmarter on: The Tel:Cape +27Town 21 Globalist 447 7565
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