Today’s quote is from the Christian Science Monitor, which gives a revealing look into the reasons why Africa refuses to reign in Mugabe. This is a matter close to my heart, since I have family in Zimbabwe, and am well aware of the crisis that faces the people in the country.

At any rate, most South Africans look at Mbeki’s so called “Quiet Diplomacy” (or “softly, slowly” approach) in relation to Zimbabwe, and scratch their heads in disbelief: matters have progressively gotten worse with censorship of the press, human-rights abuses and land evictions, intimidation, beatings, a crumbling economy with ever increasing inflation, poverty and unemployment.

And yet, Mbeki has constantly argued for many years, “Together with [Zimbabweans], our government will work persistently and without making the noise of empty drums, to help the sister people of Zimbabwe to find a just and lasting solution to the real and pressing land question in their country.” SA’s Foreign Minister Dlamini Zuma’s elaborated that SA would “never” condemn Zimbabwe “as long as this government is in power” because they didn’t want to “throw [the Zimbabwean] people over the precipice”, despite the evidence that they already are being pushed over it by their own government.

Yet this is not the real reason behind Mbeki’s softly, slowly approach. No, Mbeki was in fact much clearer about it at a March 28 South African Development Community conference in Tanzania, as quoted in the Christian Science Monitor article:

“The fight against Zimbabwe is a fight against us all. Today it is Zimbabwe; tomorrow it will be South Africa, it will be Mozambique, it will be Angola, it will be any other African country. And any government that is perceived to be strong and to be resistant to imperialists would be made a target and would be undermined. So let us not allow any point of weakness in the solidarity of SADC, because that weakness will also be transferred to the rest of Africa.”

Therefore, the real meaning of quiet diplomacy is essentially to support Zimbabwe, which “is perceived to be strong”, through thick and thin because it has been “made a target” by “imperialists”, and the SADC must not show “weakness”.

This is similar to the slogan, “My Country, Right Or Wrong”, and it is likely to have the same disastrous consequences of allowing a thug and a tyrant to stay in power.

Ever wonder how all the money pumped into fighting the War on Drugs is used? Well, here’s one indication from the Associated Press:

The U.N. found that Colombia’s army - the largest recipient of $700 million in annual anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency aid from the United States - had participated in killing civilians in 21 of Colombia’s 32 states.

The U.N. said the numbers of civilian killed in those areas showed an increase over 2005 but did not provide death toll figures.

In many cases, the victims were falsely presented as leftist rebels killed in combat, crime scene evidence was tampered with and the investigation was led by the military’s questioned criminal justice system.

The report said such killings with “characteristics of extrajudicial executions do not appear to be isolated incidents” and may have been prompted partly by the government’s use of combat deaths as a benchmark to measure success against leftist insurgents.

But there is some good news out of all this. The UK is probably making a decent amount of money selling arms to Columbia, after having identified it as one of a few “priority” markets for arms sales.

You can tell a lot from someone’s bookshelf. In fact, when I go to someone’s house for the first time (and if they don’t mind) I always make a point of looking to see what books they have. So it was with interest that I had a read through Jim Lobe’s recent piece on Bush’s reading list. Most of the books mentioned seem to conform to a general pattern of strengthening Bush’s world-view: right-wing and neo-conservative with a dose of Islamophobism thrown in for good measure. Of course, Lobe wouldn’t be able to name every book on Bush’s shelf, but it would be nice to know that he owns one or two that challenged his world-view instead of strengthening it, all things considered.

A griefer is considered to be someone who plays an online game with the sole purpose of causing grief to the other players, normally through harassment; this is normally referred to as “griefing”. Originally used in baseball as a derogatory term by away teams talking about the home side, it began being used to refer to gamers by around the year 2000.

Recently, the term has been used (such as in the More4 News video clip available from this page) to describe protesters in the online world of Second Life, such as the SLLA (Second Life Liberation Army).

I really love film, and for the last few years I’ve been getting more and more interested in watching documentaries. While I still think you can’t beat passing a few hours with some great storytelling, these documentaries have really inspired me to think more deeply about the world we live in. So, in no particular order:

1. The Corporation

Directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, and written by Joel Bakan, this film won an astonishing 24 international awards and 10 Audience Awards (including one at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival). The premise was rather unique: since the corporation is deemed in the eyes of the law to have the rights of a person (and sometimes more), what sort of a person would the corporation be? This was a highly enjoyable film exploring the history of the modern corporation and asked some incredibly pertinent questions about its impact in our age of globalization.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Official Website - The Book

2. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

An earlier film also directed by Mark Achbar (along with Peter Wintonick), it explores the life of Noam Chomsky, specifically focusing on his ideas about the mass media in democratic societies as put forward in the book “Manufacturing Consent”, co-authored with Edward S. Herman. This is an incredibly provocative film, and will make you question basic truths about Western society.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Wikipedia - Companion Book to the Film

3. The Fog of War

Winner at the Oscars in 2003 for Best Documentary Feature, the Fog of War was filmed by legendary director Errol Morris, often credited as the founder of the modern documentary. The film is loosely based around eleven lessons learnt by former US Secretary of Defense Robert S McNamara during his often controversial life. Covering both his personal life, the Vietnam war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, amongst other key events in US history, it’s often an extremely candid and insightful film in politics, war and international relations.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Official Website - Wikipedia

4. Capturing the Friedmans

Still one of the most amazing documentaries I’ve ever watched, Capturing the Friedmans was directed by Andrew Jarecki and won at least ten international awards for its harrowing tale. Originally intending to shoot a film about children entertainers in New York, Jarecki learns that the father and youngest brother of one of the entertainers, David Friedman, was arrested in a paedophile scandal. Astonishingly, the Friedman family documented the entire period through with a home video recorder, providing an incredible insight into the effect the episode had on their family. The more Jarecki digs, the clearer it becomes that the paedophile scandal was not all that it appears to be. Essential viewing.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Official Website - Wikipedia

5. Grizzly Man

Directed by the legendary Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man is about the life and death Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist and bear lover who, over thirteen years of visiting and living in bear territory in Alaska, believed that he had been accepted by the bears he loved and protected. Ultimately, he was to be proven tragically wrong when he and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by a bear. The film is essentially an exploration of man’s place in nature, and the boundaries that exist between being human, and being a wild animal; a brilliant film.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Wikipedia

6. Bus 174

Winner of at least 23 international prizes and awards, including an Emmy, Bus 174 is a Brazillian film directed by Jose Padilha. It essentially tells two stories: the first is a bus hijacking, caught live on camera, where Sandro do Nascimento, a typical, young Rio de Janeiro street kid, held hostages on Bus 174 for over four hours while the police attempted (and failed) to control the situation. The second part, interwoven into the first, is what drove Sandro to this point, and reveals how society had constantly failed to try provide him and others like him any type of meaningful existence. Social commentary doesn’t get much better than this.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Official Website - Wikipedia

7. I Know I’m Not Alone

A film that I’ve reviewed before on here, the film follows musician and political activist Michael Franti as he goes on a journey to Iraq, Israel and Palestine to meet the people affected by war and occupation. This was a truly outstanding piece of political and social commentary that tried to help build bridges between real people.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Official Website

8. Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi

These two films, as well as the third film in the trilogy called Naqoyqatsi, remain as beautiful, inspiring, and thought-provoking now as when the first film, Koyaanisqatsi, was released in 1982. Directed by Godfrey Reggio, the films have no real dialogue, and consist of just simple and moving imagery of our world overlayed with the wonderful music composed by Philip Glass (the third film, however, focuses more on image manipulation rather than simply film). These timeless films explore the relationship between mankind and nature, urban life and technology versus nature, and between the so-called first and third worlds.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Wikipedia - Official Website

9. The Devil And Daniel Johnston

A film about genius and insanity, director Jeff Feuerzeig documents the life of singer and songwriter Daniel Johnston through Daniel’s own film and tape footage, as well as interviews with friends, family and supporters. Hailed as a musical genius and inspiration to some of the most influential bands over the last twenty years (such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Sonic Youth), he also suffered from deep mental problems that lay unrecognised for many years (he was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder). A deeply moving documentary.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Wikipedia - Official Website

10. Planet Earth

Probably the most stunning nature documentary ever made, the critically-acclaimed BBC series is a landmark in nature film-making, providing some of the most unique cinematography ever put on film. Enough said, really.

Amazon - Internet Movie Database - Wikipedia - Official Website

Honorable Mentions:
Supersize Me
Winged Migration
Microcosmos
Baraka
The Yes Men
American Blackout
The Power of Nightmares (Available online)
The Century of Self (Available online)
The Thin Blue Line
Beyond the Gates of Splendour

AllAfrica.com is running a Business Day article on South Africa’s interests at the upcoming China-Africa Forum in Beijing. it would appear that, while South Africa is “keen to see increased aid to” Africa, it is particularly “interested in gaining greater access to the vast Chinese manufactured goods market”, mainly in the form of cuts “in Chinese tariffs on goods to which value has been added” since it is “the only country in Africa that exports manufactured goods to any large extent”.

Furthermore, much like happened when South Africa and China reached an agreement on SA’s textile industry, the article points out that “SA is likely to push for a Chinese commitment to voluntarily restrict exports when local industries are threatened”.

South Africa’s overall thinking was quite clearly expressed by its Reserve Bank governor, Tito Mboweni, who said: “Let’s strengthen our relations with China.” He pointed out that while “The US might still be portrayed by some as the major economic growth engine in the world … in reality that picture was changing”, with China contributing more now (24.5%) to global domestic product than the US (16.3%). This should no doubt worry the US and Western markets, since they are the largest trading partner of South Africa in terms of total trade, with Germany and the UK falling second and third respectively. Historically, South Africa has always been within the Western sphere of influence, but this may change.

From China’s point of view, South Africa is probably the key to the continent, for two main reasons. The first, obviously, is trade related, because South Africa is quick becoming Africa’s new “colonial” power. While SA woos China to try and restrict its exports, SA has not been so kind to the rest of Africa. As the Christian Science Monitor points out, “South African foreign assets throughout Africa totaled about $5.1 billion in 2004, spanning a wide range of sectors from telecommunications to mining”.

South Africa accounts for about 25 percent of Africa’s total GDP and has produced striking trade balances with less developed African economies - a concern to regional leaders.

In Zambia, South Africa has supplanted former colonial power Britain as the country’s largest foreign investor. South Africans have poured about $300 million into Zambia since 1993, according to the Zambia Investment Centre. In 2005, Zambia held a trade deficit of more than $600 million with South Africa. Moreover, nearly half of Zambia’s imports are South African.

As David Robins, Pick n’ Pay’s deputy chairman acknowledged “[South African firms] have kind of moved in with a significant amount of brute force on the African continent.” This has led to the same sort of criticisms against South Africa that have been used regarding China’s threat to local businesses. It would seem, then, that being a favoured ally with South Africa would secure access to the rest of the continent, at least by proxy.

Secondly, South Africa is viewed as a top priority in terms of a possible diplomatic ally on the UN Security Council. Currently, SA holds a two-year, non-permanent seat on the Council, but has been pushing for the inclusion of African and Latin-American countries to have permanent seats on the council and a veto. As the Business Day article noted, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma held talks on Thursday with China’s equivalent, Li Zhaoxing “to discuss SA’s upcoming membership of the United Nations Security Council”.

Several studies have predicited that “globalization is likely to take on much more of a “non-Western face”", with China and India giving it “more of an Asian look and feel“. South Africa, it would seem, is fast becoming a poster-boy for this global trend, as is Africa as a whole.

BBC4 just screened Nahid Persson’s Prostitution Behind The Veil, which was nominated in 2005 for an Emmy award. It also one a Guldbagge in Sweden for best documentary in 2005, and. achieved honours at the Creteil International Women’s Films Festival.

Born in Iran in 1960, Nahid Persson fled the country over twenty years ago and now lives in Sweden where she has studied microbiology. She also founded a radio station there. In 1993 she began studies at Film-och TV Skolan, and received master class education from 2003-2004. (Danish Film Institute)

The film was excellent, if rather shocking. Persson has returned to Iran “make a documentary, but not this one.” In Iran, “she finds the divisions between the classes greater than ever, unemployment has skyrocketed and widespread disillusionment provides a lucrative market for an elderly man, Habib, who sells prophecies on the streets” using canaries to pluck random, written predictions from a box. Deciding to make a documentary about the fortune teller, while filming “she was both shocked and intrigued to discover” Habib shared “his accommodation with Minna and Fariba”, two female prostitutes who are both heroin addicts. As Persson explains, the two “women were happy that someone was interested in their plight”:

“We had a natural relation. We trusted each other,” Persson says. “They even asked me on several occasions to go with them when they were going to meet some of their regular customers, because they were from some police station. But I didn’t do it out of the fear that I had to film someone who wears the uniform of a pasdar [Iran’s Revolutionary Guard]. And it was also better for them that I didn’t do it.”

Both women had become drug addicts due to addicted husbands. Fariba was given it by her husband to treat her kidney pain, and slowly got addicted; eventually “her husband sends her into the street and tells her, ‘Go bring clients.’” According to the film, Fariba had two children, one of which she still had, but the other, a three month old baby, was sold off by her husband. Minna’s story was similar in that her husband was arrested for drug running and more, and she turned to prostitution when she ended up living on the street with her child. She claimed she had no idea of his crimes, but he did get her onto drugs, too. Both women are often forced to take their children with them as they seek clients.

The film reveals how Shia Islam law can be used to “legally” conduct prostitution:

Men in Iran can find a way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law by way of “Sighe,” a temporary marriage legal in Shia Islam. A Sighe marriage can last from two hours up to 99 years. Both Minna and Fariba participate in this pseudo-marriage with many of their customers

The film is well made, and sympathetic to the characters, and reveals a hidden side to Iran, where an official Iranian report concluded in 2000 that “Drug addiction is the rage among schoolchildren, prostitution has increased 635% among high school students and the (growth) rate of suicide in the country has exceeded the record by 109%.” The film looks at some of the prime causes of this: unemployment and poverty, and the fact that contraceptives were banned after the Iranian Revolution which led, from 1970 to 1990, to an almost doubling of the population from 28.4 to 54.6 million people.

All in all the film is worth watching to try and gain a better understanding of the social issues Iran faces.

Like many whites in South Africa, we had a maid from the moment we moved into our new house near Pinetown, Durban in around 1989 or so. Roughly 8% of South Africa’s workforce are thought to be domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are now earning R1000 or less per month (2003 figures). As late as 1999, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) estimated that the average wage for domestic workers was between R369 and R549. The large domestic labour force reflects both South Africa’s apartheid past and its current struggle with job creation, poverty and unemployment, where “Between 1994 and 2003, unemployment rose by 153 percent … Unemployment is still 115 percent higher than it was in 1994.”

But our maid was not just a statistic, or someone who had to make the bed.

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I’ve expanded a bit more on some of the themes I wrote about in my recent article, Israel’s Rational Prospect. You can read it here.

As Lebanon is bombed by Israel, I was shocked (but not surprised) to watch the BBC talk calmly on TV a few days ago - with computer generated graphics to demonstrate - how Israel was conducting war crimes (not said as such, obviously) by targetting Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, a mirror image of Hizbollah’s repeated war crimes against Israel in Haifa and elsewhere.

Israel have so far targetted: “highway bridges, residential buildings, and an electrical sub-station“; Beirut airport, “the fuel stores of the Jiyyeh power plant”; three factories producing household goods; “production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country’s largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant” that “will cripple the economy for decades to come”; churches; a hospital; apparent Hezbollah TV and radio stations; highways, and more. This mimics the usual Israeli strategy of collective punishment, as carried out in the recent Gaza attacks which “included the cutting off of water and power supplies, the destruction of bridges and damaged sanitation for local Palestinians.” As Amnesty International pointed out, “The wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and property and the disproportionate restrictions imposed on civilians by Israeli forces amount to collective punishment on the entire population of the Gaza Strip, a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits punishing protected persons for offences they have not committed.”
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