Mzansi Afrika

Heist season

It seems that with Christmas almost upon us, cash-in-transit heist season has arrived. There have been four heists today alone, three in the greater Johannesburg region and one in Limpopo province. What gets to me is the size of these armed gangs, we're talking about up to 15 robbers at a time, armed with AK47's, acting with absolute impunity. I suppose it's a good thing money burns or they'd be running around with rocket launchers. I particularly like the way the one gang operated, using a BMW to ram the transit van. I suppose you may as well do it in style, and you can always steal another luxury vehicle the next day.

The first Johannesburg incident occured on the East Rand near the Barbara road offramp, the second in Northcliff and the third on the M2 near Cleveland. It seems that the last was a botched undercover operation - metro police acting on a tip off were conducting a surveillance operation during peak hour traffic. Unfortunately, it appears that the police have something in common with the National Intelligence Agency - the hijackers spotted them first and opened fire.

Cash-in-transit heists are known to get worse around Christmas time when there is more money in circulation being shifted around. I would have thought it was still a bit early for this, but I guess the early bird catches the worm.

Global Voices

I've just done my first round-up of South African blogs for Global Voices. You will find it here.  I wasn't able to mention all the good local political blogs - there are so few of them, I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak because I'll be doing a round-up every two weeks. So I will get round to including other great blogs like fodder , The Fishbowl and Gabbahead.

Global Voices is an amazing online project seeking to provide cyberspace for bloggers in developing countries, and countries that are generally lost in the din of US and other big country voices. Global Voices is holding a conference in December which has been sponsored by the Reuters news agency, so it's definately been noticed. Rebecca MacKinnon, one of the pioneers behind Global Voices writes:

"Global Voices Online was born at last year’s workshop for international bloggers, held on the final day of the Votes Bits & Bytes Conference put on by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Our blog has now emerged as the leading online portal and guide to international blogs beyond North America and Western Europe. It has also become the hub of a growing community of international bloggers who want to build a better global conversation."

As well as South Africa, I'll also be looking at Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Botswana. Unfortunately for some reason blogging hasn't really taken off on these countries, with the slightly lesser exception of South Africa. So if anyone knows of any blogs from this region that fit into the "issues based" genre, I would appreaciate it if you could let me know.

Quote of the day

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true."

Robert Wilensky, American academic

Another name storm in a teacup

The Ekurhuleni Metro Council wants to change the name of the Johannesburg International Airport to the Oliver Tambo International Airport. Tambo lived for some time in Watville in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, and is buried in Watville township. The matter was discussed at a Council meeting yesterday and it was decided to go ahead. Of course, the Metro is not empowered to take this decision themselves, what it means is that now they will submit a proposal to national government, and if government agrees, I think the next step would be to take the issue to the Geographical Names Council and public input will also be included. According to the Democratic Alliance (DA) the impetus for the name change comes from the ANC so I'm fairly confident that government would support the name change. It goes without saying that the DA does not support the idea of renaming our biggest airport.

"The DA believes this is a bad idea.The current name is neither hurtful nor offensive and is already an established part of the International marketing of the region and the province. It is extremely doubtful that the proposed new name will enjoy the support of the community where it is located. A large number of South Africans do not regard Mr. Tambo has having advanced anything other than ANC sectarian interests and from this point of view the proposal is likely to divide the community and undermine the interests of a united nation.

When the name of the airport was changed from Jan Smuts International it was argued that structures and features should not be named after politicians. This is an entirely acceptable argument in the context of reconciliation and it would be a pity if it were turned on its head in a fit of ANC triumphalism."

Mzansi Afrika thinks that the DA argument is bullshit. How on earth can the DA imply that naming something after Oliver Tambo who led the struggle from democracy from outside South Africa, and without whom arguably there would be no democracy, can be hurtful and offensive. I like the idea of naming the airport after Oliver Tambo, I think it would be something that we can take pride in and his memory deserves to be honoured in such a way.

FGM

It seems that some promising developments may have taken place in the fight to eradicate the horrific practise of female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision. FGM is widely practised in many African countries where Islam is followed. The practise results in extreme health risks that are frequently life threatening. This can be especially problematic during childbirth, depending on the severity of the circumcision method that was used.

"Beyond the obvious initial pains of the operations, FGC has long-term physiological, sexual, and psychological effects. The unsanitary environment under which FGC takes place results in infections of the genital and surrounding areas and often results in the transmission of the HIV virus which can cause AIDS. Some of the other health consequences of FGC include primary fatalities as a result of shock, hemorrhage or septicemia.

Long-term complications include sexual frigidity, genital malformation, delayed menarche, chronic pelvic complications, recurrent urinary retention and infection, and an entire range of obstetric complications whereas the fetus is exposed to a range of infectious diseases as well as facing the risk of having his or her head crushed in the damaged birth canal. In such cases the infibulated mother must undergo another operation whereby she is "opened" further to insure the safe birthing of her child."

Sapa reports the welcome news that a group of prominent muslim clerics in Somalia have issued a fatwa against female genital mutilation. They have condemned the custom as being against the Islamic religion, and say that it should be a punishable offence. One of the clerics was quoted as saying that every girl "suffering this fate" should be able to take their parents on in an Islamic court and ask for compensation. Unfortunately at this stage, it appears that this last statement was more hypothetical than anything else. Also, there is no such thing as rule of law in Somalia where powerful clan allegiances hold sway, and differences between religious leaders are rife. So, in reality the fatwa will be difficult if not impossible to enforce. Even so, this is an unusual move, and although my optimism is probably completely baseless, the fact that this has happened at all, is to be highly commended.

Jacaranda season

It's jacaranda season in Johannesburg. If there are two physical attributes that sum up and symbolise Johannesburg in my mind, it's the Hillbrow Tower and jacaranda trees in early summer. Personally I prefer indigenous trees like acacias, and would love to see developers planting these wonderful thorn trees rather than the ubiquitous Italian cypruses going up everywhere to compliment the hideous Tuscan villas springing up like eyesores all over Joburg. But even though they aren't indigenous, there's just something about the jacarandas. They are so incredibly beautiful and they seem to become part of your identity as a citizen of this city.

When the jacarandas are in season it seems that the air itself becomes infused with a soft purple light.The flowers drift down on to your windshield as you drive and scatter the pavements everywhere as if a purple snowstorm has hit town.....and when the jacarandas are in bloom, you know that the whole summer stretches before you and it just makes you feel happy.

This morning, I finally did what I have been meaning to do for the last couple of years, and went out with my camera to snap some shots. These pictures were taken in the suburb of Melville.

Africa - digital dumping ground

The Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle based environmental organisation has just released a report titled "The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa." BAN focuses "on confronting the excesses of unbridled free trade in the form of “Toxic Trade” (trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies) and its devastating impact on global environmental justice."

According to the report American and European  recycling firms donate useless equipment to developing nations as a way of getting around the expense of having to recycle it properly.

" A new investigation by the toxic trade watchdog organization, Basel Action Network (BAN), has revealed that large quantities of obsolete computers, televisions, mobile phones, and other used electronic equipment exported from USA and Europe to Lagos, Nigeria for “re-use and repair” are ending up gathering dust in warehouses or being dumped and burned near residences in empty lots, roadsides and in swamps creating serious health and environmental contamination from the toxic leachate and smoke.

The photo-documentary report entitled “The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and Abuse to Africa,” exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers.

In Lagos, while there is a legitimate robust market and ability to repair and refurbish old electronic equipment including computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones, the local experts complain that of the estimated 500 40-foot containers shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75% of the imports are “junk” and are not economically repairable or marketable. Consequently, this e-waste, which is legally a hazardous waste is being discarded and routinely burned in what the environmentalists call yet “another “cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries.”

“Re-use is a good thing, bridging the digital divide is a good thing, but exporting loads of technotrash in the name of these lofty ideals and seriously damaging the environment and health of poor communities in developing countries is criminal,” said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN who led the field investigation."

New HIV/AIDS clinical trials - gel

The race is on to develop the first anti-hiv gel for women. Sapa reports that 10,000 African women will take part in a major British study into a gel which could help prevent the spread of HIV. The trials will begin in South Africa and Uganda this week, and then extend into Tanzania and Zambia later in the year.

"The women are to participate in the three- to four-year trial of
microbicide PRO 2000 to find out its effectiveness at protecting against HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). Laboratory tests have shown the gel can block the entry of STIs in humans and protect animals against infection.PRO 2000, developed by US pharmaceutical company Indevus, is applied to the vagina in gel form."

A research consortium is conducting similar studies on a gel product in Australia.

"In the final study, the researchers will test the gel on HIV-positive women. "Then we're starting to look for true efficacy where we're trying to see does this gel stop the transmission of HIV or not," Mr Sullivan said. "Those trials are extremely difficult."

In India as well, in Tamil Nadu, similar trials are being conducted on a product called Praneem.

Car Free update

As most cynical Joburgers predicted, Car Free Day was not what you would call a resounding success. In fact, other than the odd adventurous citizen, and our provincial leaders for whom catching public transport on the day was part of the big PR show, traffic was the same as on any other day.

I think that this basically goes to show that Car Free Day will never work in South Africa unless we have an adequate public transport system in place. What was interesting about our Car Free Day was that while internationally the day serves to draw attention to environmental issues, in our case it focused attention on the public transport system and the lack thereof. So, in that way I would say the day was a success. The whole Day and the build-up to it received wide media coverage, and provincial and national transport leaders were grilled by radio and TV presenters about improving our public transport. We were given a lot of promises that the situation will be improved, and now it's up to the media to keep tabs on the issue and hold our leadership accountable.

Dream on Orania

Those insane and racist Afrikaners in Orania have not yet given up on their dream of creating an independent, self-sufficient "homeland" within the borders of South Africa. They are currently holding a conference to look at how section 235 of the Constitution can be used as the basis to push forward their claims for independence. This section of the Constitution is titled Self-determination, and reads as follows:

"The right of the South African people as a whole to self-determination, as manifested in this Constitution, does not preclude, within the framework of this right, recognition of the right of self-determination of any community sharing a common cultural and language heritage, within a territorial entity in the Republic or in any other way, determined by national legislation".

The conference will be attended by a number of Afrikaner academics and intellectuals, and an international expert on community self-determination and self-sufficiency. Opening the conference on Thursday night, well-known political analyst, and former opposition politician Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, said that communities have the right to self-determination providing they do not contradict the constitution.

Well, I guess they can keep on dreaming and trying, it appears that the Orania Movement hasn't noticed that the Constitution enshrines equality for all and protects South Africans from racism and discrimination. When I last checked, banning  people from living or working in a certain area on ethnic grounds, even if that property is privately owned, is regarded as racism.