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Sun, June 24, 2007 11:29:57 PMFrom:
MediaChannel.org
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NEWS DISSECTOR: DISSECTING FROM SOUTH AFRICA
NEWS DISSECTOR June 24, 2007
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA: I have barely had the time to catch my breath. After a sixteen hour "sojourn" in the air, I arrived in Joburg with barely time to spare to catch a flight to Durban, the port city on the Indian Ocean.
I am here to attend the amazingly curated Durban International Film Festival with participants from all over the world. (I will show IN DEBT WE TRUST later this week.) I was whisked from airport to a dinner at the China Plate Restaurant (Talk about international!) hosted by the country's best known film producer, Anant Singh. Anant had persuaded me to come for the dinner and it was only when I did, that found out in was partly in my honor.
On the way to Durban, I read about the impending Rugby confrontation beween South Africa's Springboks, a team I was once part of boycotting and New Zealand's "All Blacks, a team known for its pre-fame rendition of the "Hakka," a war chant of the Maori people. I had never seen a Rugby match before and even though the stadium was sold out, I was "connected" enough to get in despite the mayhem and watch it in a corporate box.
Rugby was the mainstay of White South Africa, and emblematic of its sports crazed macho culture. That is until Nelson Mandela charmed the fans by turning up in a Jersey and appealing for their support. The still mostly all white crowd started out by singing the national anthem?Nkosi Sikeleli Africa?once the chant of the liberation struggle and now a multi-lingual anthem fused with the old South Africa's song Die Stem with an all English coda paying tribute to "South Africa our land."
The Boks took an early lead but seem to have petered in the last fifteen minutes out and were outplayed by the New Zealanders. Not a great day although temperature wise, it was a beautiful first day of Winter. The game is followed by what we would call tailgate parties but theirs are known as Brais and thousands of fans spent hours outside the stadium eating more meat than I could look at.
I didn't hear any discussions of politics although the country was experiencing a strike by civil servants that was threatening to go into a forth week. I was treated to people about crime which the government has now acknowledged is at epidemic levels, a sign of the great gap between rich and poor that is the new apartheid in this country. (And many others.)
I did see one film Operation Filmmaker by a fellow American Nina Davenport. It chronicles the experience of a young Iraqi captured on MTV explaining that he wants to be a filmmaker but now he is not sure he will be able to pursue his dream because Baghdad's film school has been bombed by the US. The actor Liev Scheeiber hears his plea and arranges for him to work on a movie he was making in the Czech Republic. Nina gets to document what everyone expected would be a happy ending.
But Muthana Mohmed has ideas of his own and seem to irritate everyone "helping" him with the best of intentions. Like the US invasion of Iraq which Muthana actually supported, no one gets what they want and by the end, Nina is only seeking an "exit" strategy from a project that seems to have no end in sight. It's a brave film and I was glad to hear her explain what she learned which wasn't always clear in the well made feature doc.
After collapsing from the jet log and other personal issues that have followed me here, I was up early in the morning in the company of an Iranian distributor and a South African teacher on trip into the Zulu heartland an tourist attraction called SHAKALAND. We were exposed to dancing crafts and Zulu lore as well as a clip from the old Shaka Zulu TV show that I also boycotted when it came out because it seemed at the time to be promoting tribalism as an alternative to the liberation struggle.
When I was there, I had a very disturbing conversation with two people on the hospitality team who warned that there could be war if anything happens to Jacob Zuma, a Zulu and ANC leader who is at odds with the country's president Thabo Mbeki and will run to replace him. That was ominous and a sign that tribalism is still alive and well in the new South Africa.
I hadn't penetrated so deeply into the Zulu world since I first visited this luscious green field and sugar cane plantations of what is now Kwazulu Natal when I was a militant pup of 25 and on my first "mission" to South Africa. That was a long time ago and while so much has changed, much of it has yet to impact on the traditional societies and poor communities that survive alongside the wonders of this self-proclaimed "Rainbow Nation."
Ok, that's all for now. I still don't know if I will still be blogging when I return. So I hope those of you who haven't yet responded to Mediachannel's funding appeal will pitch in whatever you can. We are still giving it all we can with my report from South Africa and Rory O'Connor's upcoming reports from the Oh My Citizen Journalism conference in South Korea.
Our world needs Mediachannel.org and I hope you will do your bit to help keep us going. And thanks to those who have sent along birthday wishes. That's coming up on the 27th.
My prayers for my dad's survival in a Boston hospital and my best to all of you.
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