The point being: what I feel is not important. At least not to you. Even you with the exceedingly long nipples, well done, by the way, for making it out of the house – I’m proud of you. You could feed babies on the other side of the room. But, the Internet, and social media specifically are designed in such a way that your opinions, your pictures, your links, your everything are given centre stage. The paradox is that there are millions and millions of centre stages and the only member of the audience is a rather shiny mirror with a giant gold frame.

Some of you might have seen a documentary called Century of the Self, by Adam Curtis. This posits the theory that the idea of a self was not crystallised in human minds prior to the early twentieth century, where Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, used psychological techniques to further consumerism and influence people. For a very brief overview at Wikipedia, click this collection of linky letters. For a little more of an in-depth look, dive straight into this blue pool of linkage (The BBC’s page for Century of the Self). And, what with the wonders of free information, why not let your mouse hover over and chomp up these letters, which will allow you to download the entire documentary, for free. Don’t complain if you burn up your Internet.

Please bear in mind that my takeout from the documentary is almost as simplified as the plot to Twilight. So don’t kill me, or troll me, or start a flame war, or whatever it is that the Internet kids are doing now.

What we are seeing now, manifesting in the Internet is the evolution of this idea of the self. If or when you watch the documentary, you will see how the public had to be given this idea of the self. And then, they had to be taught that only by buying things, they could define who they were in relation to other people. The Century of the Self tells us that prior to this, humans only ever consumed what they needed. Am I guilty for owning 30 pairs of shoes. Yes. I am.

The Internet has evolved to meet this idea of the self and push it further than we could imagine. People celebrate themselves for no other reason than they are themselves. This doesn’t make sense to me. While one should certainly be happy with one’s self (I am happy with myself sometimes two, three times a day), I still don’t understand people’s need to blab so much. To literally cut themselves open and let it all pour out. I don’t like having your smelly, emo guts all over me, thank you very much. Perhaps because the Internet is so much more anonymous and there are less consequences than there are in real life, people are happier to air their dirty laundry without fear of recourse or someone looking at them funny with that slight sneer as if there’s a strange smell afoot.

Think of facebook status updates. I have seen more post-break-up wars of words than I care to count. And no one realises just how silly and childish they are. The same goes with overly emo status updates. No one cares that you’re upset, that you’re over it, that you quit or that you give up. Mentioning your dear Pep-pep that just died means nothing. Does your emotion only become validated when it is seen in a public forum? If there was no Internet would you have to run around in the streets with a sign around your neck (complete with an unhappy face, just to let people know for sure that you’re upset)? Or (and this is something that irritates me more than people trying to justify to me why Twilight has any merit whatsoever) are people just doing the old emotional fishing? This can take the form of fishing for compliments or fishing for sympathy. Either way it’s pretty lame. As soon as people fish for compliments or sympathy around me, I tend to ignore their pleas quick-smart.

I think it’s the assumption that your emotions, your insides, are worthy of public consumption that frightens me. I define myself (on the Intertubes and to a large extent in real life) by what I create, by what content I put forward. It doesn’t matter that I was the youngest person to reach the South Pole wearing only underpants and green nipple tassels, or that I entered the Winter Olympics for the antique pipe-smoking and typewriter abuse events and won gold at both (and had to get a really bad tattoo to let you all know that I was there). What matters is the content that I produce.

I define my value by what I can create. What I can bring into being from nothingness. My selfish hopes and dreams have nothing to do with any of you. You can ask me and if I feel like it, I might share some things with you, but I hope I will never overshare my personal life. It’s really not that interesting. And neither is yours. Even if you’re quirky and zany. And you know what? Even being kooky is not enough. What I’m interested in is your responses to things, big things, not the way your best friend’s ex-girlfriend totally likes you but you’re not sure if you should do her or not because bla bla bla bla, I’m sorry I couldn’t read any more of your self-serving blog because I was stabbing an oyster fork into my eyes.

I don’t even like oysters and I wear glasses. You can imagine the amount of effort needed to just undertake such an action.

Dear readers. There is a difference between blogging and writing. I am not a blogger. The democratisation of the Internet has been its biggest boon and its biggest bugbear. The idea that information and content can be created and shared by anyone is still one of the most exciting things I’ve ever come across. Just thinking about twitter makes my brain wet, when I consider what a thrilling, dynamic conversation it can be. It can also be a whole lot of emotional whining, or mind-vomit, don’t get me wrong. This democratisation has allowed anyone to start a blog, a place where they can share their talent with the world (if they have any). Or they can share pictures. If that’s their thing. I’m generally about as visual as Stevie Wonder. But please kids, stick to your talents. The piss-stained sepia look does not make your photos more arty, even if you’re pouting as best you can, sticking your neck out so that your double chin doesn’t show and standing with the biggest group of friends you can find, to prove how cool you are. Ditto black and white. Black and white photos should be left to the professionals. Or dogs.

You can become righteously indignant. Tell me I’m no better than you. That I’m a bastard for slapping the sunburn that is your personality. I’m just as boring as you are. I just recognise that I am. And anything I share in a public sphere I try to make interesting. Especially if it’s actually about me.

Yours (in parentheses),
Paul White

Afrika Burn is not for everyone.  That said, it’s definitely something you should experience.  A lot of our visitors will be familiar with large outdoor trance parties like Easter and New Years Vortex, Alien Safari, and a whole host of smaller (and arguably better) independent outdoor progressive and electro parties.  Afrika Burn is not like this.

Those of you expecting to fill up on chemicals, grab a double vodka Red Bull from the bar and bounce around past sunrise should check your attitude at the gates, and relinquish any preconceptions about trance parties before you even think about it.

This year, The Daily Discharge staff photographer Cameron Richards is not only attending – he is investing himself fully in the event.  He will be spending nearly a month in the desert (and many long nights beforehand) as part of the DPW (Department of Public Works) crew, helping to set up and provide the basics for the festival goers.  He is also helping to build the main sculpture, called ‘San Clan’, which we expect to look something like this (and is traditionally burnt at the climax of the festival):

His mission for the festival will be to take as many photographs as possible, documenting the entire process for his final year Photography project (Cameron is currently a fine art student at UCT’s Michaelis School of Art).  His images from last year’s Afrika Burns 2009 were nothing short of breathtaking, and we expect that this year he will outdo himself.

Afrika Burn is held on the longest stretch of highway without a town on either side (the literal middle of nowhere), and is an “experiment in temporary community building, radical self expression, self-reliance and non-commercialism”.  What that means is that there are no cash bars, no trinket stalls, and nothing to buy (or even barter for).  Your money is no good there.  You must either bring everything you need, or rely on the community’s generosity for your needs.  To quote from their website:

“This “gift economy” means that there is no commercial exchange at the event – no vending, no cash bars and no branded promotion of services or products – the aim being real social interaction. It is an exercise in total self-reliance: participants camp for four days and provide entirely for themselves, including all their water, shelter and food needs”

What’s more, everyone who comes to the festival is expected to “gift” something to the community.  This can be as simple as handing out orange slices in the noon sun or playing the guitar by the campfire, or as elaborate as building a large structure (or ‘Wish’) to be burnt as an offering to the community.

Image © Cameron Richards Photography

“If you come to AfrikaBurn, you must participate in whatever way you can. We want no spectators.”

If this sounds like a bunch of hippy nonsense, and all far too dirty and dusty for you: save yourself the trouble and stay at home.  But think hard before you write it off.  This is an experience of a lifetime, waiting for you to grab it.

The principles and ideology behind Afrika Burn come from those embraced originally by the Burning Man festivals abroad (although rumour has it that these festivals have sadly lost some of their free spirit and open, community-oriented atmosphere).

The bottom line, and something we wish to stress, is that everyone is welcome.  The festival’s principles of radical inclusion (whoever you are, we accept you) and immediacy (immediate experience being the touchstone of the Afrika Burns society) are paramount, and everyone who attends needs to bear these in mind.

Afrika Burn 2010 may be just a five-day event, but the company itself (Afrika Burns) aims to be a continuous collaboration that will foster large-scale public art and the sharing of creative energy.  It is a not-for-profit organisation, with any money earned being returned to the artistic community through art grants.

To sum up: this is not just a trance event, or a music festival, or an art exhibition.  It is not just a party, an event, or a road trip.  It is a departure from everything you have come to know and expect from modern society, and a drastic step towards finding new ways of being part of humanity. I’d like to leave you with this quote from the organisers:

“Afrika Burns aims to be radically inclusive: we hope that its meaning is potentially accessible to anyone. The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied ritual before symbolism, work before vested interest, participant support before sponsorship.  We hope that the ideas in the principles will become a way of life for those who have experienced them, spawning independence, initiative and creative expression.”

So think about it, and if you don’t go this year, put it on your bucket list.

You have probably seen this type of graph before.  It shows the availability of computing power against time:

It's Science

This illustrates one important truth: we are heading for a ‘vanishing point’ – the point where we have access to infinite information, and infinite understanding and control over the natural world.  This point in our development is referred to by futurists and sci-fi geeks alike as ‘The Singularity’. (There is an excellent article on The Singularity here, if you’re interested)

The Singularity is the point at which a civilization advances beyond the point where all the constraints we have struggled with since we stopped flinging poop suddenly vanish. It is the infinite abundance of energy, resources, computing power, knowledge, and the absolute control of matter.  Or to put it another way:

It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future, create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond this event – call it the Technological Singularity – are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm.

- I can’t find the author of this quote

Some say that at this point it will make more sense to ‘upload’ ourselves into a giant computer system, because our physical bodies and brains will only be a hindrance to attaining personal and cultural maturity – or ‘Omega Comprehension’ as Sci Fi author Peter F. Hamilton put it.  It is the point where we realise our true and final potential as a species, and possibly move on to something greater than physical existence.

A lot of people think The Singularity is very close – something we will see within our lifetimes.  A lot of people put it as close as 2050, and that’s pretty exciting.  But we have a lot of steps to take, technologically and socially, before we are mature enough as a species to evolve along with our capability.

Fortunately, five of the technologies that will take us there are already (or nearly) available to us.  In some sort of order involving importance and futuristic-ness, they are:

#5 Genetic Engineering

We live in an age of genetically-modified foods, and arguments about designer babies.  Genetic engineering is upon us, and you can cry ‘slippery slope’ and ‘playing God’, but it ain’t going away.  As I mentioned in the article about the Widening Beauty Gap, it is only a matter of time before genetic engineering is socially acceptable and widely available.

This will have a massive impact on our society.  We already live longer than our ancestors, and don’t even worry about illnesses which would have wiped out cities a century ago. Genetic engineering and a greater understanding of cell biology will make things like cancer, HIV and Aids, heart disease and Alzheimer’s about as scary as smallpox.

We will all be prettier, and I believe that lifespans well in excess of a century will become the norm within fifty years, mostly because of genetic engineering.

The Down Side?

Our population is already exploding at an unsustainable rate. We all know that it has doubled in the blink of an eye, and this is in no small part due to advances in medicine.  Doubling the lifespan of everyone on the planet would have catastrophic consequences in terms of overcrowding, resource and food shortages, etc.  A solution to this will have to be found, or we will face widespread famine and war on a scale we can’t even imagine now.

#4 Nanotechnology & Metamaterials

This is some exciting stuff.  A while ago scientists figured out that you could take single atoms of carbon and string them together in a type of rope to make carbon nanotubes.  These tubes are Superman’s hair, only a thousand times thinner.  Then some bright spark worked out how to write IBM using single silicon atoms.

Since then and in-between there have been some incredible advances in making incredibly tiny structures.  We can already make glass that makes water bounce off it (no more windscreen wipers) and make cameras so small they can be swallowed like a pill.  This is only the beginning.

Nanotechnology, when it becomes feasible and abundant, will revolutionize our society like nothing ever has.  The industrial revolution and the Renaissance will look like municipal bye-elections by comparison. Imagine total control of matter, the stuff of the universe – true alchemy.  Turning lead into gold will be a child’s trick.  We will be able to take chunks of base metal ore, shove them into factories teeming with nanomachines, and wait for our space station to pop out the other end.

There is no theoretical reason why we cannot do this.  Once we are able to control and alter matter at an atomic level we will be able to do anything imaginable with it.  The only limit will be an availability of raw materials.

Metamaterials are an exciting new class of substances with many weird properties.  They gain these properties not by virtue of what they are, but by how the particles are arranged.  These arrangements allow metamaterials to seemingly break the laws of physics in some interesting ways.  We already have liquids you can walk on, ferrofluids (video below) which are metallic fluids that respond to magnetic fields, and a God-damned real-life invisibility cloak.

The Down Side

Coupled with the next two on the list, we end up with some nasty Terminator situations.  Those aside, however, there really aren’t any downsides to nanotechnology.  Unless, like me, you were scared shitless by Alistair Reynold’s Century Rain.

#3 Quantum Computing

The D-Wave Quantum Computer

Quantum computing is like normal computing, except a million times more complicated to explain.  The average person’s grasp of quantum mechanics and computing theory is zero (rightly so) and mine is little better, but I will try to begin with quantum mechanics in a nutshell:

Classic physics defines everything as having properties – mass, speed, direction, and position in time and space – and it assumes those to be absolute, otherwise nothing works (please don’t blast me if you know better – I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated).  Quantum physics on the other hand accepts that a particle does not exist at a specific point, but rather in a ‘zone of probability’.

That means you can find it at any point in that zone at any time. Not just one or the other, but technically at all points it exists, just with a different probability of actually being there.

Quantum computing attempts to make use of the tiny changes in the quantum state of particles, and use these changes to drive calculations.  A normal computer works by flipping a switch to denote on or off – a one or a zero, or a ‘bit’.  Using some clever manipulation of math and linguistics, you can then combine a bunch of bits to store a message or do a sum.  In a quantum computer, one particle can have (if I’m correct) up to six possible positions, meaning that more calculations can be done at the same time.

But there’s more: That’s only with one particle.  Using a whole bunch of them, the power of the computer increases exponentially, until eventually you have a computer capable of calculating Pi to the last decimal, or something.  It can also make use of a principle called ‘probabilistic computing’, which is basically a computer that guesses pretty close instead of working out exactly (when getting an answer fast is more important than getting the answer eventually), but it does it faster than a shart sneaks up on you.

To put it in perspective: it took a huge pile of graphics processors over a day to render a single second of the movie Avatar.  It is difficult to say how long it would take using a sophisticated quantum computer, but my guess is that a human would see it as nearly instant.  Going the standard route in computing, we could probably never attain that kind of speed.

The Down Side

As with nanotechnology, there isn’t an obvious down side to near-infinite computing power.  It will solve a lot of problems we have right now that are solely limited by how fast our machines can crunch numbers.  The down side will probably come in with the next technology.

#2 Artificial Intelligence

Don’t be fooled – we already have machines that can learn, make decisions, get moody, get high and make art, and convince us that they are human by being better at it than we are.  Trillions of dollars are being poured into AI research all over the world, and some exciting stuff is happening.

The major advances are in Simulated Neural Nets – computers that not only work like a brain, but are built like one too.  Our brains have billions of neurons, and trillions of synapses, all of which form an intricate net that somehow begets consciousness.  Right now that ‘some how’ is the biggest thing between us and the T1000.

Researchers at IBM have already built a cat-like brain.  (this is the link to the article debunking IBM’s ‘Cat Brain’ claim, but it is still very interesting reading).  Or rather, a part of a cat’s brain.  It’s capable of learning its environment, and is growing smarter and smarter every day.  It is limited by how many neurons and synapses it has – about 1% of those found in the human brain – but the cool thing is that if it needs more, they can just bolt on some extras!

Research proposals are already underway to build a brain with the same structure, number of neurons and number of connections as the human brain.  If any one thing brings us closer to the Singularity, it might be this.

The Down Side

This one is obvious:

Apart from sentient killer robots, there is one more thing that is perhaps even more worrying. Computers that are smarter than us and can think will, inevitably, attain their own Singularity.  What’s more, they will be a lot closer to it than we were when we started.  Whatever that will look like, it probably won’t work out well for us fleshies.

#1 Controllable Fusion

Finally we come to the holy grail.  There is one problem will all of the above technologies: they will inevitably require a lot of energy.  That’s energy we don’t have.  It is highly likely that we will exhaust our planet’s natural energy reserves – at least the way we extract and use them – before we find another planet to rape.  That’s where fusion comes in.

Fusion is not a myth out of The Saint – it’s real and it happens all over the places.  It occurs in nature, in stars, and lately in our laboratories.  But only in a crude form.  When you split an atom, all its guts spill out and a lot of energy is released.  But when you smash two atoms together – Hydrogen atoms, for example – they join, and release the energy they don’t need, which is a lot more.

Unlike nuclear fission which produces radioactive waste as a by-product, the end result of a fusion reaction is Helium or water, depending on what you use for fuel.  Neither of these are too bad.

The person who creates a way to sustain a fusion reaction and extract its power will contribute more to the development of mankind than any human ever has, or ever will.  They will also probably get laid more than anyone else ever has. It is the single most important thing our civilization can strive for, and it absolutely must be achieved at all costs.

Limitless, free energy will set us free. Combined with nanotechnology’s gift of control over matter, we will no longer have to compete for resources – something we have fought and died for since we can remember.  Our species as a whole will suddenly have no reason to continue most of their wars, and we will truly be able to begin eradicating world poverty and hunger.

If that sounds like a pipe dream, think of it this way: if anything we need, from food to automobiles, can be made in an unmanned factory from raw materials, and cost nothing, there will be no need to have a job (and few available anyway) unless you wanted to make or build or grow things for the simple pleasure of it.  The concept of being “wealthier” than someone will lose all meaning, because everyone will have free access to anything they want, and as much of it as they want (legislation permitting).  The only thing we could possibly run out of is time.

The Down Side:

None whatsoever.

Your Host

Norman Conquest

You obviously haven’t seen this quote on your iGoogle page:

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wicked of men will do the most wicked of things for the greatest good of everyone” – John Maynard Keynes

Keynes was an economist.  Specifically, he was the economist, the one we blame for Keynesian economics, (adopted by the US to combat the great depression); something we’re seeing a bit more of these days. In the form of government bailouts.  Yes I know that’s not all there is to it.

He’s one of the people behind ‘capitalism’ as we know and love it today.  And he knew what he was talking about.

I like to use the following example borrowed from something called Game Theory, part of which describes how we act towards each other when resources are limited.

Consider a fishing community living on a large lake. The lake provides enough fish for the villagers, and some extra for them to sell and make a small profit.  However, the villagers are aware that if everyone keeps fishing as much as they like, soon there will be no fish, and that would be the worst possible outcome for everyone. Also, those who do not have the resources to catch a large number per day are disadvantaged right now.

So they agree to a quota: you are only allowed to take enough fish to feed your family, and as many again to sell, per day.  This sounds sensible, and if everyone abides by it the village will prosper.

However, people respond to incentives.  If everyone else is abiding by the rules, but I can break them and not get caught, my family will be more prosperous than the others.  So I break the rules.  But I’m not the only one this bright idea has occurred to.

If some people break the rules, others will be disadvantaged, and there will be an unequal sharing of wealth. The resource will also be depleted more rapidly.  If everyone breaks the rules, we’re back to square one, and soon everyone in the village will die or move off.  And if others are breaking the rules, there’s no incentive for me not to.

This is essentially what free-market Capitalism allows.  Of course, with regulation you can stop the scumbags from over-fishing the lake, but that becomes another problem.  How much freedom do you allow?

Now, I’m not a socialist.  I appreciate the finer things that my money can buy. But capitalism is not your friend. It exists by keeping the vast majority of the world’s population in economic bondage, through debt, as well as value and wage inequality.

If you have a professional or semi-professional degree, and a stable job with a good company, you are probably in the 97th percentile on the world income curve.  That means that 96% of the world earns less money than you. And unless you own large stretches of property in Dubai, and fly out on the weekends to play golf there, you probably aren’t in the 98th percentile. That’s how unequal it is.  It isn’t so obvious from this graphic (which is very old), but you get the idea.

World Income Distribution

Capitalism created this situation, and in my opinion it is impossible to fix without the drastic re-allocation of wealth, or the abolishment of debt-based currency altogether, neither of which are workable.  All of our money is created out of debt, or promises from the government.  The interest on this debt is repaid with your tax money.  It’s a very long route, but money created at the top, tends to stay at the top, with only debt trickling down.

(For information on a model for a resource-based economy instead, see The Venus Project)

The net effect of this is that we work our entire lives for companies which extract far more value from us than they return to us in the form of wages.  Think about it: if you make a product that is worth $10, and the company pays you $5 for your time $3 for materials and sells it for $10, who’s getting the better deal here?

Not you.  If you had the resources and ability you could make it for $3 and your time and sell it for $10, but you can’t. The company controls that power, so you have no choice but to sell your labour at a discount in return for a wage. You are creating more value than you are being paid for, unless you work for yourself.

This is the socialists’ gripe with capitalism, in a nutshell. On paper it is also a very valid argument. What confuses me are the numbers from the article ‘Quarter of People Say Capitalism Fatally Flawed‘ published on Reuters this morning.  Only a quarter? In fact, even more in the United States – even though the average American is in quite a lot of debt, and works a nine-to-five for less money than they’re ‘worth’.

Capitalism is not your friend.  It exists because people believe it is good for everyone to have free access to resources, if they have the money, which they can ‘earn’ through their hard work.  But that is the lie. It exists because of that last 2% of people. It exists because for every dollar you earn, they earn two, and they didn’t have to do any work for it.

Who are they?  They are the ones who have put themselves in a position to benefit from capitalism, not to serve it.  The ones who own the vast majority of the income-producing assets on the planet – and they could probably fit into a small town.

I’m not telling you to go out and get angry and protest outside the G20.  I’m telling you to have an informed opinion about how this money stuff works, because it is the leash used to control you.

If capitalism is only working for 2% of the population, and you’re not in it, why do you think it’s working?  Apparently 11-13% of those polled thought it was just fine, thanks. 27% thought it was fatally flawed and needed to be replaced, and the rest couldn’t give a shit.

This means that the vast majority of people support a system designed to control their lives and keep them from living to their full potential from the day they were born, to the day they die.  Retirement is no escape. As long as you need to think about where your next paycheck is coming from, you can never be free to pursue all that which makes you happy.

So tell me: why only a quarter?

Your Host

Norman Conquest

Figure 1: Future President Julius Malema

Everyone living in South Africa, and quite a few besides, has a strong opinion on this guy. My knee-jerk reaction is to pity and fear him for the overstuffed, rabid dog he could quite possibly be.  However, I have also heard Gareth Cliff claim that he went to see him speak, and he said that the guy actually came across as politically-savvy, forward thinking and well-informed.

Now, I usually take what The Cliff says with a pinch of salt.  However, he was formerly one of the Nation’s biggest Malema-bashers, so I am now prepared to hold my judgment until I have met the guy and heard him speak in person.

Again however, his character is not under my scrutiny.  I am referring to the article published by IOL on 02 November, 2009 in which it was alleged that Malema was pulled over for speeding, and then began to swing political dong to get out of it. He allegedly (and I’m being very careful to use that word a lot) yelled ‘Are you not aware that I am Julius, the president of the Youth League?‘ and then proceeded to call the MEC of transport to get him to come down and ‘discipline’ the unruly police officers who had pulled him over.

Since then a slew of articles have come out about it, in yet another Malema press frenzy.  He does something like this every week, guys, and every time, the same thing happens.  White people get angry, some black people get angry at the white people, and they all piss and moan on the comment threads for a few days. He doesn’t actually get into trouble.

We don’t like to admit it, but we know why.  Incredibly enough, I have yet to get to my point.  It’s not just that this kind of thing happens all the time in this country, and in the rest of Africa.  My point revolves around the reaction to, and acceptance of, this kind of ‘above-the-law’ behaviour.  For the rest of this article I’ll mostly drop the humour, and cite heavily from Dr George B. Aytitty’s article ‘The Concept of Wealth in Traditional Africa‘, and sources he mentions.

Most people can’t understand it when someone posts a comment like this on the IOL article mentioned above:

“There is nothing wrong with what Malema has done, he is a high ranking member of the ANC and the future president – he is therefore above the law (sic).”

This kind of thing frightens white people, and makes us want to move to New Zealand. We are tempted to dismiss the speaker as ignorant, stupid and brain-washed by ANC propaganda.  And we might be right.

But according to the good Dr. Aytitty, wealth in traditional Africa was a virtue – but only if it was earned with hot sweat.  In Western society this was more or less the case as well – both societies had some ideal of a meritocracy (being awesome is rewarded) in the foundation of their modern (post-feudal) structure. Though this is of course perverted in the West, most people still pretend it is true, and things function properly.  If someone abuses status or power, people get upset, and they get slapped on the wrist, just like a real meritocracy.

In Africa, it seems, this is not the way our ideal of a meritocracy got bent. According to CNN, merit leads to money, political power and status.  In South Africa of late, it seems to be that status confers merit.  Simply by being in a position of political power makes you worthy of that position in the public eye.  I am generalizing horribly, and I know that a lot of people in government fully deserve to be there, and have worked hard for their posts. For example, I wasn’t too bummed when Trevor Manuel bought himself some shiny new wheels – I figure he’s earned it by now.

Figure 2: Trevor’s New Beamer

All that aside, I’d like to ask how this happened to Africa.  As the good Doctor’s article says of traditional Africa: “Wealth in indigenous Africa had a physical presence… [but] Royalty was in name and not in fact, as the Igbo recognized achievement rather than hereditary-bestowed greatness (Olaniyan, 1985:24)”.  What this means was that wealth and power often happened together in African society, and the overt display of this wealth is highly valued, especially by those that do not possess it.  To really hammer the point:

“The pursuit of wealth was a cultural occupation! Prestige, status, honor and influence were all attached to wealth in indigenous systems. The wealthy were “important people” with influence in governmental affairs. It was no accident that political figures in traditional African societies were also wealthy.” (LeVine, 1962).

In short, a rich chief enriches the tribe. Having powerful, charismatic and influential leaders who are above reproach made a traditional society stronger, happier and more cohesive.  These values are not very different from the West, but the idea of the goodness inherent in a just distribution of wealth does not apply across the board in Africa – only to those who work for a living.

What this means (to me) is that African society might be more predisposed to accepting the transgressions of its leaders, because it sits well that they should have these privileges.  The people value their leader’s wealth.  For the Gikuyu (Please bear with me and forgive the inevitable cow example):

“Cows give the owner a prestige in the community…The owner of a large number of cattle was sentimentally satisfied by praise names conferred upon him by the community in their songs and dances” (Kenyatta, 1938:62)

Figure 3: Songs and Dances

During the run-up to the election, I spoke to two fervent ANC supporters, both of whom were low-income earners, and neither of whom finished high school.  Still, I considered these people to be level-headed, intelligent individuals.  When I asked why they were voting for Zuma, they both responded the same way.  They said they weren’t voting for Zuma, so much as they were voting for Mandela’s party.

What does this mean?  It means that the ANC is good at making voters out of people who don’t have the time or energy to find out better for themselves.  Both of these people worked hard to support families, and didn’t read political blogs in their spare time.  They got their news from friends or the SABC, and their political education from rallies and fliers, so it’s hard to blame them for not considering all the alternatives. If the ANC tells them to support Julius Malema, then that’s what they’ll do.  They might share Gareth Cliff’s opinion of him, or they might not, but their opinions didn’t factor into it.  What’s important is that Mandela’s party put him there, and so he must deserve to be there.  In the old days they used to call it the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, now in African Democracy flavour.

I’m not here to talk about what this means, or whether any of it is even remotely accurate.  I know I’m missing a link between traditional African conceptions of wealth, and the seemingly widespread acceptance of government corruption, arrogance and overspending as somehow ‘right’.  Because make no mistake: a moral weight has been attached.

Maybe someone can help me fill that in. I welcome your comments.

Your Host

Norman Conquest

References Cited:

Aytittey, George B. (2008) ‘The Concept of Wealth in Traditional Africa‘. published online at The Cheetah Index.

Kenyatta, Jomo. (1938) ‘Facing Mount Kenya‘. London: Secker and Warburg

LeVine, R.A. (1962) ‘Wealth and Power in Gusiiland‘ in Bohannan and Dalton, eds.

And some anonymous coward on IOL.

In the beginning there were the dinosaurs. They hunted or foraged during the day, for the most part, because even they could realise that at night they were more likely to bump into trees, rocks and eachother. Other than that they most probably saw little distinction between the times it was light and the times when it wasn’t. Then we came along.

Primitive man no doubt saw the difference between day and night. At daytime we could go outside of our caves, but at night it was dark, scary and cold. That’s when we made our first mistake. We distinguished between the two, and associated attributes to light and dark. The time when the sun was in the sky and we could wander around freely was essentially good, while night time became inherently bad.

This distinction was the most basic and profound mistake mankind would ever make, and it became the framework for how most of humankind would see the world, right until this day. Everything suddenly became divisible into one of two categories: good and evil. We constructed society, religion and the idea of nationhood around this one polarity, and it is our greatest weakness.

Ask yourself: have you ever met an “evil” person? I haven’t. I’ve met some thoroughly disagreeable people, and seen on TV those who are to be avoided in the interest of personal safety, but the distinction between good and evil is extremely difficult to quantify without coming up for a reason why your theory of what is “right” is wrong. More importantly, those qualities that we consider to be “good” are always internalised. We see ourselves as being in the “right”, and when something different from ourselves presents itself it is immediately seen as something else.

This sets up a polar relationship between “Us” being the good, righteous, freedom loving people of wherever, and “Them” the evil terrorists bent on the destruction of our way of life. This is extremely useful for a government. As George Bernard Shaw said: patriotism is the belief that your country is superior to all others by virtue of the fact that you were born in it. It is very easy to create a sense of national unity when there is a definite “enemy image” to cast that nation’s identity against.

National boundries, racial distinctions, class structures, even salary discrepancies are all arbitrary but very “real” differences (or rather, Derrida’s “Differance” that can be used to turn one group of people against another. This is why I say that “terrorists” are entirely constructed. There might be conflicting forces within a nation that have different ideologies, but these ideologies themselves are simply more arbitrary boundaries that people set up between themselves.

It is impossible for me to make you understand this unless you take it upon yourselves to actively dissolve millennia-old mental constructs. Why should you do this? Because then you will be able to see what our world has become.

More importantly, you will be able to see how unnecessary and just plain wrong most of the way our world has been depicted really is. When Bush or Cheyney stand up and say the word “Terrorism” a dozen times in a four minute speech, you will see a deliberate attempt at creating divisions and reinforcing the “Us against Them” dichotomy that keeps us all enslaved – instead of a rousing call to arms against what they would have us believe is a real enemy.

References:

Writing this article draws on many sources, some of which are reputable.  I am indebted, as always, to the masterful Peter Joseph’s Zeitgeist Movies (free download!), which don’t always contain the whole story, but show the fly the way out of the bottle.

Also, I regurgitate some of the work of Jacques Derrida, lovingly shoved down my throat by lecturers.  He is arguably the father of modern post-structuralism.

Lastly, there is a spattering of ideas from Edward Said and the philosopher, Hegel, without both of whom we might not know of the terrible things we do to one another in the name of our differences.

Your host

Norman Conquest