Transplant_ed!

I have just read the Sunday Times editorial (online) - it is sobering and worth the read. There is little of worth that I could add to respond to the barbaric horror that marks South Africa (once again) as a world-wide skunk state. Again. So I simply to note with deep sadness the passing of Ubuntu.

Barely recovering from wounds sustained 30 years ago when noosed by a tyre and set alight, or blasted with shotgun pellets from a "Trojan Horse" Post Office truck, Ubuntu finally died wrapped in a matress and set alight in the street by laughing mobs. Ubuntu's passing was barely noticed by point-scoring politicians, union leaders, and others who have abused her name for so long. Barely an apology from OGL. And the best the soccer fraternity's international spokesperson could muster was the (unbelievably insensitive idiocy) that the "xenophobia would have passed by 2010". You crass, misguided man, take your head out of whatever crevice it is currently occupying and accept that we have no moral right to any such event. That is merely 2 years away, what African nation will forget the way South Africans have responded to their generosity in the past? Politicians worrying about tourism, income and investment may have been too busy to notice the fact that people are dying, been brutalised and leaving this sad land by their thousands. What they leave behind are not jobs and houses, but the pall of shame. Ubuntu has discovered too late that sad lie: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

An addendum or perhaps errata (added 26th May):

 Perhaps like Mark Twain, rumours of Ubuntu's death may have been a tad previous. Judging by the amazing students and staff of SHAWCO, Ubuntu lives on - and based on Media Flaws' really helpful explication, these people, and others like them all over the country, are both giving and receiving such a gift. 

 The Blue Flag organization which categorises beaches according to its own set of criteria, and which SA coastal municipalities all clamoured for and boasted loudly about (if one of their sand patches was awarded one), has really exposed something smelly in Durban. It's beaches of course, but something else too. It would seem as if the municipal manager there has his way, transparency and democracy will be necrosing away merrily with Durb's beaches. Not the first time I've been impressed with this manager's grasp of rhetoric and deft parrying of critical questions, ensuring that they spin off into the distance and make no impact. What worries me is that the man is (was?) a card carrying supporter of a former liberation movement which supported a wonderful constitution. Now he sounds remarkably like one of the other ANC (the Afrikaner Nationalist Club) which ran the country into the smelly status of international pariah. Here's a bit from the Mail & Guardian :

    Blue Flag beach scheme 'like apartheid'

Mail & Guardian Online reporter and Sapa | Durban, South Africa    

16 May 2008 09:53

eThekwini municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe has likened the international Blue Flag scheme to an "apartheid" system that creates separate beaches, the Mercury newspaper reported on Friday. "The Blue Flag team have, through their actions, created two categories of beaches, much like apartheid having black and white beaches. The majority of people here don't go to the Blue Flag beaches," Sutcliffe said at a briefing with the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday. He was speaking on the controversy over sewage-related pollution on the Durban beachfront.

However, Andre Greef of the chamber's beachfront committee challenged this assertion, saying there were no racial restrictions limiting access to Blue Flag beaches. He said the main issue was the perception that Durban was "not good enough" to comply with international standards.

Sutcliffe also refused to make a presentation on the Blue Flag controversy unless members of the media and opposition party councillors were ejected from the briefing.

Blue Flags are part of an international beach-quality accreditation scheme. Four beaches in Durban were once rated world class, but they have lost their Blue Flag status, reportedly as a result of poor water and sand quality. According to the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, the organisation overseeing Blue Flag compliance in South Africa, tests on some beaches have shown levels of faeces in the water to be unacceptably high by both World Health Organisation and national standards.

Blue Flag national coordinator Wessa's Alison Kelly told the Mail & Guardian in March this year that flags were lowered largely because of water-quality issues at the beaches: "To date, E coli levels fall within accepted limits. However, the levels of faecal enterococcus/streptococcus in sea water along the Durban coastline are the cause for concern." <end quote>

Refused to give a presentation until all those who think he's covering up a stink are evicted? Oh man, this eThek bloke is a delight. How can the Blue Flag organisation "create" beaches in the same way as Apartheid did? Do they have signs banning some people from using certified clean beaches while condemning others to using Durban's business as usual beaches? Do they have "Only Un-named Group Permitted On Blue Flag Beaches"? How? Sadly we'll never know, because Durban's light of democracy has decided that he'll only tell his friends. In the mean time, it would seem he'd prefer that everyone be damned to crappy (literally) beaches. Oh sure, other spokespersons have said they're cleaning up the beaches. And some have put the blame on the informal settlements (but then that would mean that eTheketc is to blame 'cos they have NOT supplied basic services to their people - but how is this Blue Flag's fault? Sorry, unless you're a happy club member of eThek's in crowd, you May Not Know.

How, I wonder, does this wise man think his strategy is going to help anyone try and understand his perspective? Well, if he is anything like he sounds, he probably doesn't care. It's far easier to shoot the messenger than to seriously attend to the underlying problems. Oh, and if you can catch a few opposition party members and the dreaded (hateful, disrespectful, questioning, negative) media in the collateral damage, all the better. Sounds like a load of crock to me.

But then I live in CT and Durb's water takes some time to wash down here by which time the icy bloody water in this area will have frozen any coccus into oblivion anyway. But that's just my long-ago student memories of Durban's warm crappy water talking. Time, I think, to Black Flag this manager until he can learn about transparency and democracy.

Or wait - of course - the old Nationalist Party has melded with the new that's why it all sounds so similar. It's the same groupthink at work. The circus never changes, only the clowns go in and out.

Further to Retroid's very impressive example of how to use a blog constructively, I felt that I needed to show how to use it destructively, but I couldn't figure out how (if at all possible) to add the image below as a comment. So, here's a clunky link: I think I have found the traffic management solution to the pedestrian scattering high speed shuttles along the Western part of the ring road:

 

 

Actually that's quite a hopeful statement. It suggests I believe that I will not be less enthusiastic, have less energy, or be less caring than I am now. Probably an overly optimistic statement in fact. Marvin, I understand you. Just because you are a paranoid android does not mean you are wrong.

It's all my fault. I found myself with a few moments on my hands this morning while waiting for a guest to arrive for breakfast, and without thinking switched on SABC television news (I think it was SABC 2 - doesn't matter. Nothing does). I'd forgotten how mind numbingly bad SABC was. Especially those joyful Ebony and Ivory pairings for "good morning" programmes. The damage was instant, and I never managed to lift a finger to listlessly press the off switch before I was stunned into a state of dribbling catatonia by the news of OGL (Our Great Leader) jetting into Zimbabwe to mediate, of the machinations of the inquiry into the suspension of the New Age Pik (Pikoli replacing Botha) - such a post-facto event given the demise if the Scorpions - of bread cartels, rising fuel prices, mumble, mumble, mumble.

As my new role model, Marvin the Paranoid Android (Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe - not to be confused with Retroid's Hitchiker's Guide to the Campus... although....), would have said: "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline." And that was just the SABC news. Luckily my wife arrived, switched off the TV, wiped my mouth, seated me facing the table and put a pot plant on my head before the guest saw me. She thought I was quaint. But then she would, she's a pharmaceutical researcher and they see the possibility for drugs (read: money) everywhere.

Look, right now the reality of the SABC (can those words be used together?) is way more entertaining than any of its products. "Snuki, you're out" (hear the cheers). Then, "Mpofu, you're out" (more cheers) - and behind it all the shadow of Polekwane (Blade and his happy band of SACParty goers) looms. Although in retrospect it's also just another canned "reality" show aka as "life in a soap opera". For those of you who may have missed some of the more recent episodes in the soap opera of SA: The State President's official house was burgled of huge amounts of aluminium wire being installed to secure the house from lightning (of course...., and perhaps from field emissions from an overheated internet connection?); the Premier of Natal's official residence was robbed last night; Irwin congratulates everybody for saving electricity and halting the blackouts (just when outdated switchgear is exploding everywhere because of rolling blackouts) and then two days later warns everybody that because we're weak and use energy to warm ourselves in winter we can expect unscheduled blackouts. Now there's an improvement - straight from old Alec "there's a loose bolt in the system" Irwin.

The Mail & Guardian is so much more entertaining (at least if its bill boards are anything to go by) - why there we can read of "Zille's bitchslap for Rasool" - Darwin, but the mind boggles. Where did that happen? How? Can we see? What the hell is a "bitchslap" and who is being insulted here?

And please can we NOT have to be bludgeoned by daily inanities emerging from drawn out court room dramas which would rival any of the drivel that our various TV stations put out: six weeks of speculation, legal pronking, snot en trane could all be omitted and the final judgement reported. Give other news space to interrogation of more important things. Like um, like, umm. <MUTE>

No, actually, It's not a bad day really. Well, I have gout because of the immunosuppressants, but that's life. The post title arose out of a research dilemma - one which is probably peculiar to social scientists and perhaps some humanities researchers. In fact the carefully disguised expletive (F-----g) in the title was not even my word, it (and a few variations on the theme) arose in the responses of a research respondent. Now I have to tread carefully here because in so many ways this a research ethics issue.

In qualitative research, especially those using interviews, it is incumbent on the researcher to reflect what the respondent said, not what the interviewer feels better that s/he said. Now while I accept (to some extent) the idea that all intervews are interpretive, as is the transcription process, and that the exact meaning intended by the respondent cannot be assuredly conveyed, this particular interview has posed what Heidegger terms an aporia: a moment in which I (as a researcher) am left experiencing "resourcelessness" - oddly, in the face of a delightful resource. Ethically, I should present a true reflection of the respondent's words. Equally, could I survive the report at conference and in a journal, that the respondent is "F-----g" tired of being expected to act in a way s/he experiences as unethical because of tight-fisted university structures. To say that s/he "finds the economic policy resorted to by the university structure constraining" simply does not describe the same thing now, does it? Can you imagine saying that to someone when, yet again, your professional practice is undermined by people who want you to do the job, and who won't do it themselves, but who expect you to compromise all over the place, except of course in "standards". Here are larger classes, and the same per capita resources as were available when the class was smaller. More students, sustained "output" and "throughput", oh and keep the costs down please. K-k. 

So, where should the compromise go: "the respondent noted that 'I'm [expletive] tired of being asked to [expletive] ...." or simply, honestly reflecting the feelings of a teacher whose passion for her/his discipline drives her/his teaching, tell the audience of academics that "responding to a question about constraints on profession practice the respondent expressed the sense that s/he was "fucking tired of being asked to fucking..." . Oddly, the only time in an hour that s/he departed from cautious intellectual exchange and adopted "Frank and Earnest" academic discourse. To which I can only say: Amen. 

Ah to be a scientist, where the worst thing your experiment is likely to do is infect you with a deadly disease, electrocute, irradiate, burn, blind, deafen, crush or drown you.  But rarely tell it like it is.