National Unification Strategy (NUS)

written on 11/56/09 but held back without internet till now... i think some of it was perhaps a bit rash...

This whole thing is kind of funny. I am in Johannesburg, a city that
oscillates between the brooding, colourful hope and exhaust that I smelt
in Kampala, and the stulted, wide boulevards of an LA suburb, with
teenagers licking ice creams and mirrored office buildings sitting at
every corner. Not that this somewhat negative impression scratches the
surface of what I am sure is a great and beautiful city- I just haven¡¦t
had a chance to explore it. We have been in southern africa almost a week,
chauffered between fancy hotel and wood panelled board room over and over
again, meeting various organisations and getting to know each other- a
group of 10 ¡¥youth leaders¡¦.

Having said this, some of Africa was found on a 3 day sojourn to
Swaziland, a landlocked absolutist monarchy that is home to just over 1
million people and the highest HIV rate in the world. We took the 6 hour
drive from Jo-burg as the landscape changed from flat prarie land to deep
valleys and hills that are almost mountains. The Swazi people are really
lovely, relaxed people  who are for the most part off the tourist trail
and so tiny crime rates and no cynicism. We visited some growing co-ops
and walked a little in the hills.

My fellow ¡¥youth leaders¡¦ leave me flummoxed. Four work for the labour
party, either as campaigners or PAs for MPs. One of them used to work for
Liam Burn, ex-immigration minister and a total Daily Hate Male. Three have
close links with the NUS, including it¡¦s vice-president- an organisation
that this year has decided to campaign against binge drinking (as opposed
to free education, student housing or anti-racism) in a bizarre twist that
makes students effectively pay to be mothered. The rest are trade
unionists (always good eggs, and this case is no exception). Talk is of
nonsense NUS and labour insider politics- this in between meetings where
we hear how the world bank is withholding aid, people are dying of curable
diseases if they are not dying of AIDS and many of the people we meet look
to the UK government and therefore the labour party to ¡¥do something,
please¡¦.

The juxtapositions are everywhere: a meal where the pay of NUS full timers
and general sabbaticals was bemoaned before we met the Swaziland NUS who
have NO money and have to go cap in hand to local NGOs and pay for meeting
venues and transport out of their own pockets. Talking about fair trade
food over a meal in which half the food ordered is wasted. Intense
meetings about our collective solidarity followed by a shyness in engaging
with the people we meet on a social level immediately after.

The wrong people have come on this delegation. SOAS development studies
students would not only bring so much more to the table when we meet
genuinely knowledgeable, interesting and inspiring people (we had to
clarify what ¡¥Harare¡¦ was today) but they would also understand the many
pitfalls of westerners coming to help ¡¥develop¡¦ for 2 weeks staying in
well fucking posh hotels and sponsored by coca cola. They would also be
committed to do something beyond these weeks, something I seriously doubt
members of this group are (guys, if you are reading this please don¡¦t be
hurt, I think you know anyway) Even in ethnomusicology we talk about the
¡¥insider/outsider¡¦ way of doing fieldwork, (fieldwork is what this
essentially is) and taking a community on their own terms using its own
value sets to figure out what practical steps we can take together to
forge real positive change. This, by contrast, sometimes comes dangerously
close to voyeurism. We visited an orphanage for all of 45 minutes, handed
out food and listened to them sing (which was magic, and I briefly fell in
love with the soloist), cuddled them a bit and then spent the journey back
talking about how much we pity them. Awwww. I had a short but intense
moral dilemma shortly after- should I go and say hello to the woman in the
house dying of HIV induced TB who needs her mother to speak for her?
Everyone else was.  In the end I decided that playing mbira to her might
make the experience overall positive and I did and it was nice, but only
just.

In contrast to the lack of real Politik amongst the delegation, the people
we have met- reprentatives from the zimbabwean and swazi national student
unions, who regularly face imprisonment and beatings for standing up to
the state; members of civil rights groups who travel for miles from rural
areas to meet us; aswell as the taxi drivers and hotel porters that speak
the truth wherever you are in the world- are amazing and it is a real
honour and inspiration to spend time with them. And there is proper
revolutionary activity happening- the Swazi equivalent of the trade union
congress asked for a photocopier and 10 bikes so they can take the truth
to rural areas. Also in Swaziland, the last demonstration to free two
political prisoners ended when the police got a good hiding and ran into
the hills. The people we meet are young, totally dedicated, totally
lacking the egos of the Britist student movement and all the stronger for
their lack of cynicism about the political process.

And this is what I am here for and makes the whole corporate sponsored
endeavour worthwhile. Despite what Ed said about how I could do this by
myself if I really wanted and avoid being tainted, the bottom line is that
I wouldn¡¦t have access to these people if I hadn¡¦t come with ACTSA and
they wouldn¡¦t have access to the myriad of possibilities that are brewing
in my mind for what we can do from London.

The perspective on my life that I feel I have almost entirely lost in the
big city with the big job and dense (but joyful) squatlife is beginning to
return, and I once again feel that I can interact with the world on my own
terms and get excited by the big and small things. I have the same cycle
each time I go far away from home- the initial elation and exhaustion of
travel and solitude gives way after a week or so to some strong pangs of
loneliness and the question that ¡¥if this is what I feel the best thing
for me to spend my time doing is, yet I feel kind of homesick and lonely
then what is left?¡¦. This usually co-incides with the residual bits of
cannabis leaving my system and along with it the fuzziness that makes many
things bearable, but soon both these things turn from bad to good and a
clarity comes that is the marrow in the middle of the bone that I secretly
look forward to. I am almost there ļ.

And my mind races forward to zimbabwe¡K we have met quite a lot of
zimbabweans here and I have picked their collective brain about the
current conditions in zim, ability to travel, availability of goods etc
(apparently they have rolling tobacco so I can stop smoking imported
Camels¡K). The bad news is that in their desperation for food and fuel the
people killed lots of the wildlife and chopped down lots of the ancient
trees in the national parks. This is shit, but I have heard that some of
the national parks in the north are still pretty ok. I have also made
contacts with some Jazz musicians in Harare and it turns out that there is
a Jazz festival on 24-6 June in Harare, just at the right time to for me
to make a leisurely overland trip there from SA. I have brought some good
musical materials with me and have been learning new tunes on the Mbira at
every opportunity.

And so we roll on. Tommorow we tour a coke factory. I am going to go well
armed (with facts) and then cape down early next week.