South Africa

답변들이 많이 있을지 없을지 모르나, 특별한 대상 없이 게시하는 일반적인 게시물입니다. 혹시 남아공에 거주하면서 이 블로그를 읽고 계시는 분이 있으신지 궁금합니다. 만일 이 블로그를 읽고 계신분이 있으시면 , 이 블로그 Comments Section에 간단한 자기소개나, 글을 남겨주시면 감사하겠습니다.

Some said Trevor Manuel was being too flashy with his cash. He just purred and told them to kiss his ASGISA.

Checkout this well written and pretty funny article by Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenyan author, playwright, journalist and winner of the Caine Priza). It seems Wainaina also has an SA connection as he studied commerce at the University of Transkei, after which he worked in Cape Town for some years as a freelance food and travel writer. In July 2002 he won the Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story "Discovering Home" (Source Wiki). But I do digress, here's an extract but be sure to go read the article in its entirety :

How to Write About Africa

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

 

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

 

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

 

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care....

 

So its just before Christmas and (as usual) the office is complete chaos. My partners in Korea are also starting to lose it, big time :

Mr Kim from Seoul : Now, Someamongus we need payment for that cargo ASAP.

Me : Well Mr Kim I'm afraid getting things done this end during this time of year is very difficult.

Mr Kim : What do you mean "this time of year"?

Me :  Well you know - Christmas, New Years etc. many local companies close and take a long holiday.

Mr Kim : ........

Now repeat process for Mr Lee in Daejon, Mr Choi in Busan and so on and so forth. Riveting stuff. But I do digress, back to the matters at hand.

Saw a top movie last week (between moments of office insanity) Lord of War. It turns out that there is a big South African connection to the movie with maybe 40% being filmed inside South Africa and the Department of Trade and Industry funding a portion of the production budget. Nicholas Cage does a great job playing the part of Yuri Orlov a morally challenged Arms Dealer. The two characters who really caught my eye though, were that of the murdering thug Charles Taylor Andre Baptiste Sr. and his sociopathic son Chucky Taylor Andre Baptiste Jr. - brilliant acting. To think as I write this that idiot is sitting in palatial splendour in Nigeria. Where's the justice...

Speaking of arms trading checkout this very interesting piece on South Africa's complicity in the burgeoning small-arms trade. This one is a real eye-opener...

The "Friends of JZ" show their anger over the rape allegation. 

Found this interesting CGI movie called Alive in Joburg while surfing the net. The creator Neill Blomkamp is a South African expat :

"In 2004, Neill was recognized as "One of the top five directors to watch" at the First Boards Awards, featured in the "Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase" at Cannes, and short-listed at the "Shark Awards". In 2005 Neill received the award for "Outstanding VFX in a commercial" for "Citroen-Alive with technology" at the VES awards in California. He has since been featured in Shots, Shoot, Campaign, and Creativity magazine and recently won three awards in London, England at the "BTAA" award show. Neill is represented by Spy Films Internationally as a Director/C.G Artist of both T.V. commercials and music videos."

 

You can checkout more of his amazing work here.  

Our first new fighter has arrived :

Linköping, Sweden: South Africa’s first completed Gripen fighter was unveiled today in a roll-out ceremony as it left the production line. The aircraft, which will be the first of 28 Gripens delivered into South African Air Force service from 2008, will now be prepared for a rigorous and thorough flight test programme to integrate South Africa’s customized avionics and mission systems.

 

You can see more photo's of the ceremony here. I also found an interesting link with a comparison between the F-16 and the Gripen here - for all the real guru's. (Hat tip to Commentary for the info.) 

Picked this up on the wire. Seems some clown Prof. from South Korea who is on sabbatical in SA had the following to say about former North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung :

"Ranked among the likes of India's Gandhi, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Mao Zedong of China, Kim Il-sung stands out as a great leader, revered by the people of the Third World...Therefore, the people of Africa feel more affinity with North Korea than with South Korea...Most of the fighting against dictatorships in Africa was actually directed against the outside power of the U.S., so for them Kim Il-sung, the leader of a Far Eastern country who was brave enough to stand up to the U.S. even before they did, makes him as worthy of honor as their own leaders. Whenever I am given preferential treatment just because I come from the same country as Kim Il-sung, I feel a little embarrassed." - Jang Shi-ki, professor of English Literature, Dongguk University

 

So this guy has been in SA for maybe hmm 2 months and already he knows all this? I doubt more than a handful of South Africans (or African for that matter) know who Kim Il Sung is or even care. However, there is a group in Africa that has definitely "benefitted" from Kim Il Sung's brutal methods of State sponsored suppression fight against dictatorships :

"The 5 Brigade came into existence under Prime Minister Mugabe's command. In October 1980, Mugabe signed an agreement with North Korean President Kim Il Sung that arranged for North Korean training of Zimbabwean troops. 106 [North] Koreans were sent to train this new brigade which Mugabe said would be used to "deal with dissidents and any other trouble in the country...The deployments of the 5 Brigade into Matabeleland in the early 1980s were marked by terror and shock, with actions meant to draw out anti-government "dissidents". Within the first weeks of the first deployments, 5 Brigade troops had murdered more than two thousand civilians, beaten thousands more, destroyed property and burned houses. Civilians, not "dissidents," seemed to be specifically targeted during those weeks: dozens or hundreds of civilians were rounded up, marched at gun point to a central area, like a school or village well, beaten with sticks, and made to sing Shona songs praising ZANU-PF. These gatherings would then end with public executions.

 

Statistics on the violence committed against civilians were documented by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, and backed by figures collected by human-rights workers, journalists, missionaries, and lawyers. As many as 7000 civilians were killed and thousands more were injured by the time the 5 Brigade withdrew from Matebeleland...The scars of the 1980s, however, have not healed, and although Mugabe has offered compensation for victims of those years' events, many are cynical. The human rights abuses of the early 1980's leave not only physical injuries, but mental and social ones as well. Individuals, groups, and entire villages have lost their loved ones, their property, their ability to get an education, and their community way of life. The pain that exists as an aftereffect of the murders and beatings deserves to be heard and spoken of if the people of Zimbabwe, particularly those in Matabeleland, are to understand their own history, share it with others, overcome their bitterness and suspicion of the government, and unite against the possibility of these events happening again." * Extracts taken from Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, "Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980 to 1988"

 

So Prof, what you think of as "preferential treatment" is probably more like embarrassed incredulity that someone who has a doctorate can make such sweeping and misinformed statements about their host country (continent?). It's a sort of South African tradition not to insult house guests - even when they have made a huge faux paux. We're just humouring you, you silly boy! The South African Embassy in Seoul has also released a press statement rejecting Jang's loony stand on things - politely of course.

"What is, however, difficult to understand is how an academic, after visiting South Africa only two months, can make statements on behalf of South Africans and Africans that are totally distorted from reality..."

 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Update : A Korean blogger "The Marmot" has good perspective on this.

Manto defends her "African potatoes, garlic and lemons" approach to HIV treatment.

Got some love from Lemmer in the latest M&G :

The trouble with the Internet, said Dok Rabie this week, is that it never allows you to forget your mistakes or escape your hypocrisies. The manne asked him what he meant, and he referred them to a posting by a wickedly retrospective blogger on southafrica.blogspirit.com. “The international campaign for the isolation of the regime should continue and be intensified,” said firebrand Thabo Mbeki in an address to anti-apartheid activists in Switzerland in 1989. “The overwhelming majority of humanity supports that position. Yet the American policy of ‘constructive engagement’, is leading the United States into increased collusion with Pretoria. This course can only strengthen apartheid ...” Cut to 2004, with the firebrand now a president: “If necessary I can phone [Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe] every day, I can travel to Harare every day. It’s not a problem if there is a need for that kind of engagement.” Damn this easy access to information!

 

So, by popular request I'm bouncing "The Miseducation Of Thabo on Zimbabwe.."

Struggle Thabo 

“At the same time, the Reagan Administration continues to propagate a deliberate falsehood by saying that change is taking place in South Africa” – Thabo Mbeki, New York Times "Reforming Apartheid Doesn't End Slavery" circa. early 1980’s 

Prez Thabo

“I did tell the President that, indeed, the government -- Zanu-PF and the MDC are, indeed, discussing. They are engaged in discussions on all of the matters that would be relevant to the resolution of these political and economic problems. So that process is going on. We have communicated the message to both sides that -- indeed, as we agreed with the President -- that it is very, very important that they should move forward with urgency to find a resolution to these questions.” - Thabo Mbeki, Press Conference, 9 July 2003   

Reality

Here Here and Here

Struggle Thabo

“The international campaign for the isolation of the regime should continue and be intensified…It was to expedite change that the people of South Africa called on the rest of the world to disengage itself from contact with apartheid. The overwhelming majority of humanity supports that position. Yet the American policy of "constructive engagement" is leading the United States into increased collusion with Pretoria. This course can only strengthen apartheid...”. - Thabo Mbeki, Address to Anti- Apartheid Activists in Switzerland, September 1989 

Prez Thabo 

"If necessary I can phone him everyday, I can travel to Harare everyday. It's not a problem if there is a need for that kind of engagement," - Thabo Mbeki, Press Conference New York, Friday 24 September 2004.

The Reality 

Here Here and Here

Struggle Thabo

"Thus, it is possible for President Reagan to denounce all manner of countries for their "violations of human rights." Yet he breathes not a word about the horrors of the apartheid system…The problem arises when the South African regime acts in a manner that clearly reveals its abhorrent and unacceptable nature. - Thabo Mbeki, New York Times - "Peaceful Struggle Is Futile" circa. early 1980’s.  

Prez Thabo

'It is clear some within Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world, including our country, are following the example set by [Ronald] Reagan and his advisers to "treat human rights as a tool" for overthrowing the government of Zimbabwe and rebuilding Zimbabwe as they wish.” - Thabo Mbeki in letter after Commonwealth meeting 2005.  

The Reality

Here Here and Here

Struggle Thabo

"Out there, beyond the confines of this comfortable room, there are many who are dying from hunger and from diseases of poverty. And yet there sit in this room men and women of great ability, many of whom received awards tonight, who should, together with the working people of our country, be creating the wealth which should make this a happy land and one which should experience a permanent season of peace and goodwill among all its people. Thabo Mbeki, Annual Banquet of the Sunday Times, 26 November 1990.

Prez Thabo  

“…” - Thabo Mbeki, Speech on Human Rights abuses in Zimbabwe 1999-2005.

The Reality

"The government continued its campaign of repression aimed at eliminating political opposition and silencing dissent. Hundreds of people were arrested for holding meetings or participating in peaceful protests. The police, army, supporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and youth militia were implicated in numerous human rights violations, including torture, assault and arbitrary detention. Despite compelling evidence that Zimbabwe would continue to experience food shortages, the government terminated most international food aid programmes. In December parliament passed legislation banning foreign human rights groups from operating in Zimbabwe and imposing restrictions on local human rights organizations, including prohibiting them from receiving foreign funding for human rights work...    

...cos cats are cool! found via SL blog.