echoes of biko & fanon
so i think i've been dwelling a bit too much on the outcomes of my visit here. i've had a couple of strange encounters with the research director at CCS, who can't understand why i don't want to give a presentation of "my work"-- what i've been up to or whatever. He kept probing me to see if my resistance was due to some lack of confidence... and surely that's part of it, but i think at this point it's more about not having something more to share, and not feeling like i'm the person to be sharing. not yet, or not here.
i didn't come here to get sucked in to "academia," though what i have told most people upon meeting and trying to explain what i'm doing here is that it's kind of in between time before i apply to urban policy/sociology programs back home in the fall. but hanging around all these academic types [maybe a little too much], and being identified by folks at kennedy or foreman road or elsewhere thru CCS, it's hard not to be put in that role.
it's a strange place to be: there's an unspoken rift at the center between patrick bond and other researchers, for prioritizing the time of american academics coming here to do research in the "field" vs. supporting local African scholars. i feel like i need to be careful not to take for granted the good relationships built up by richard and other academics at CCS with residents from abahlali, who for awhile were rightfully skeptical of white folks and other outsiders coming in to "help." and, obviously the simple privilege of getting here to Durban and being able to buy a ticket and not work for a few months (increasing debts aside, or added to that privilege the fact that i can put off the thoughts of paying debts for a few months), and leave when i want.
i came across richard's blog yesterday, and his really thoughtful writing has reminded me of the importance of not turning in to some sort of objective researcher, what ashraf cassiem [an activist in town from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town] was talking about yesterday, in all his struggles with NGOs with tons of funding who ask him for favors--"can you show this group around your hood, can you bring 20 of your folks to this workshop"--without giving him any resources in return. ashraf, without a job, without a high school degree, has been going to court in Cape Town and representing members of the AEC who have been threatened with eviction. taking the SA Constitution's Bill of Rights, which has a provision that allows someone to advocate for a fellow member of your organization if a right of that person (in the bill of rights, like rights to housing, or dignity, or for children to grow up in decent surroundings) that you work for as an org is being infringed upon by other people. he's postponed cases, and even won some, against powerful bank and real estate attorneys. no job. no funds. no law degree. no outside support.
[one great program at CCS, RAASP, is a workshop that trains activists to do research and write their own papers about their struggles. Ashraf wrote one, see it here. most of the funding he got for the research, he said, he used for AEC projects, since his interviews were all with people he knows.]
ashraf, richard, others, mention often what fanon emphasized as the necessity of intellectuals/ academics/ middle class activists to be invested in and acting as a part of a present existing struggle. to be a part of a collective environment of critical engagement with this struggle, where ideas are created in "mutually transformative dialogue," [from richard's blog], rather than what this guy from the Illinois lieutenant governor's office said to me at some point last year, something like "making money off of other people's poverty." and from what i've heard, there's a lot of that going on here, just like home (or more likely, because of the mentality at home that's crossed the ocean to the 'developing world'). how the anc has tried to de-politicize social movements, how USAID etc has been funding NGOs or individuals that purport to represent orgs or movements, how academics take over the democratic structures of organizations like the Social Movement Indaba, and try to tell people how democracy should work, how the working class will rise up under their leadership, or how their org should be run.
there are a lot of things to get involved in here... elections in 4 weeks, folks especially at foreman could use some constructive criticism (and not hand-holding) toward outreach in their community. there are tons of families, like mrs gule from joe slovo settlement in mobeni heights, who because of tribalism and racism-- or just plain bureacracy, usually the reason-- has lost her housing allocation. these interviews alone could probably take up all of my time. banana city residents still live under the threat of eviction and water cut-offs. resources (without strings attached) needed to be found to keep the university of abahlali basemjondolo going every saturday and to create a local abahlali housing development corporation. a big march by abahlali soon. not to mention the UKZN staff strike starting tomorrow, and the campaign to un-ban Ashwin Desai from the University.
quite an exciting time... but my small place? let it not do too much damage. let me be an instrument to engage in mutually transforming and constructive dialogue.
as ashraf says, time to go and do it, now. no time to wait. why wait?
i didn't come here to get sucked in to "academia," though what i have told most people upon meeting and trying to explain what i'm doing here is that it's kind of in between time before i apply to urban policy/sociology programs back home in the fall. but hanging around all these academic types [maybe a little too much], and being identified by folks at kennedy or foreman road or elsewhere thru CCS, it's hard not to be put in that role.
it's a strange place to be: there's an unspoken rift at the center between patrick bond and other researchers, for prioritizing the time of american academics coming here to do research in the "field" vs. supporting local African scholars. i feel like i need to be careful not to take for granted the good relationships built up by richard and other academics at CCS with residents from abahlali, who for awhile were rightfully skeptical of white folks and other outsiders coming in to "help." and, obviously the simple privilege of getting here to Durban and being able to buy a ticket and not work for a few months (increasing debts aside, or added to that privilege the fact that i can put off the thoughts of paying debts for a few months), and leave when i want.
i came across richard's blog yesterday, and his really thoughtful writing has reminded me of the importance of not turning in to some sort of objective researcher, what ashraf cassiem [an activist in town from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town] was talking about yesterday, in all his struggles with NGOs with tons of funding who ask him for favors--"can you show this group around your hood, can you bring 20 of your folks to this workshop"--without giving him any resources in return. ashraf, without a job, without a high school degree, has been going to court in Cape Town and representing members of the AEC who have been threatened with eviction. taking the SA Constitution's Bill of Rights, which has a provision that allows someone to advocate for a fellow member of your organization if a right of that person (in the bill of rights, like rights to housing, or dignity, or for children to grow up in decent surroundings) that you work for as an org is being infringed upon by other people. he's postponed cases, and even won some, against powerful bank and real estate attorneys. no job. no funds. no law degree. no outside support.
[one great program at CCS, RAASP, is a workshop that trains activists to do research and write their own papers about their struggles. Ashraf wrote one, see it here. most of the funding he got for the research, he said, he used for AEC projects, since his interviews were all with people he knows.]
ashraf, richard, others, mention often what fanon emphasized as the necessity of intellectuals/ academics/ middle class activists to be invested in and acting as a part of a present existing struggle. to be a part of a collective environment of critical engagement with this struggle, where ideas are created in "mutually transformative dialogue," [from richard's blog], rather than what this guy from the Illinois lieutenant governor's office said to me at some point last year, something like "making money off of other people's poverty." and from what i've heard, there's a lot of that going on here, just like home (or more likely, because of the mentality at home that's crossed the ocean to the 'developing world'). how the anc has tried to de-politicize social movements, how USAID etc has been funding NGOs or individuals that purport to represent orgs or movements, how academics take over the democratic structures of organizations like the Social Movement Indaba, and try to tell people how democracy should work, how the working class will rise up under their leadership, or how their org should be run.
there are a lot of things to get involved in here... elections in 4 weeks, folks especially at foreman could use some constructive criticism (and not hand-holding) toward outreach in their community. there are tons of families, like mrs gule from joe slovo settlement in mobeni heights, who because of tribalism and racism-- or just plain bureacracy, usually the reason-- has lost her housing allocation. these interviews alone could probably take up all of my time. banana city residents still live under the threat of eviction and water cut-offs. resources (without strings attached) needed to be found to keep the university of abahlali basemjondolo going every saturday and to create a local abahlali housing development corporation. a big march by abahlali soon. not to mention the UKZN staff strike starting tomorrow, and the campaign to un-ban Ashwin Desai from the University.
quite an exciting time... but my small place? let it not do too much damage. let me be an instrument to engage in mutually transforming and constructive dialogue.
as ashraf says, time to go and do it, now. no time to wait. why wait?
posted by stephatriseup at 3:58 AM
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