"Captitalism, A Love Story?"

When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. 
When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.
- Dom. Hélder Camara 

"Careless consumerist consumption
Dangerous dysfunction

Disguised as expensive tastes”

Josh Garrels, “Zion & Babylon”

I am called a communist on a fairly predictable basis. It is quite underwhelming considering the accusers are largely uninformed. I doubt few could differentiate between communism and socialism. If in fact someone was to directly ask my opinion regarding economics, they would understand that I not only can justify my views, but that I am indeed a proponent of capitalism. What I object to are hegemonic economic policies such as neoliberal, corporate globalization that is commodifying the very lives of people born in the Global South. They are drowning in the wake of increased inequality and unfair competition.

It seems quite axiomatic that I would question the Western economy once it was made transparent. Furman’s Latin American study abroad trip exposed us to the realities behind trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA: we walked the cornfields of farmers losing their literal history to subsidized agribusiness, heard the stories of men who risked everything for El Norte and were even allowed into a maquiladora (at best, a factory, at worse, a sweatshop). Only within the framework of naked economics, were we able to see and hear the people who supplied our excessive consumerism.

$99 price tag

 Pictures were taken in a maquiladora, on a visit to Free Trade Zone - 2008

Aside from issues of excess materialism, I just want to lead an honest lifestyle. I can’t advocate for social change if I am not implementing those ideals at every level. How awkward would it be if you fill an “Operation Christmas Child Box” with toys made by the same 12 year old kids whose Christmas you are furnishing? 

What I found when I returned and started to change my lifestyle was that there are great resources - Better World Shopper, The Good Guide and Better World Books - but if you don’t live in San Francisco, access is extremely limited. You are stuck with clothes that suggest you are an older soccer mom or yearn to return to the African community you lived with for 23 years as a volunteer. Let’s be honest, I don’t necessary want to wear ethnic patterns. What I want is an ethical version of Anthropologie in the deep South.

My much more hipster friend (the kind that bikes and blogs) convinced me to spend one of our three free days (on a 59 day trip) at the Design Indaba Conference. I caught a glimpse of what could be in Capetown; with the mantra “a better world through creativity” it is a “100% local-is-lekker celebration of South African’s ingrained creativity.” We were given a one day guest pass to Mecca; an entire conference center filled with sophisticated products. I have never enjoyed a shopping experience so much  - pure competition between vendors to see who produced the best product. I took three laps around the center: one to soak it in, a second to scout out the products and a final trip to stop wasting time and starting building my resources and to buy samples/products. Shopping was refreshing, not stressful.  Ultimately, we witnessed an underground economy - one of fair, ethical and direct trade; the same one Americans must supplement with the internet.

Design Indaba Expo 2010 from Design Indaba on Vimeo.



"Since 1995, Design Indaba has been committed to a vision that is built on the belief that creativity will fuel an economic revolution in South Africa.
As such, Design Indaba is a celebration of design in a country iconic of the triumph of the human spirit. Proof that even the most intractable problem can be neutralised by the will of the people, resurgent South Africa is a beacon to the world. Design Indaba typifies this can-do spirit through its belief in design and how it can help solve the problems faced by an emerging economy. With the right support, a better future can be designed."
Design Indaba

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RESOURCES*
This is my favorite set - practical and easy to use. Start with Better World Books and Better World Shopper and incorporate fair trade coffee, t- shirts, etc. If you have other suggestions, please add them in the comments section of this post.

Better World Shopper
Five years of research compiled into a resource that rates products on an ethical scale. Available for download so it can be used while shopping. 
Available as an iPhone application or $5 to download and import into iPhoto - take your iPod shopping with you. Once you use it a few times, you memorize what brands are best

Better World Books
Buy new and used books with free, carbon-neutral shipping while supporting literacy initiatives.  BWB is a "self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders."

The Good Guide
"Find safe, healthy and green products, then find better ones using expert ratings." 
Availabe as an iPhone application

United Students Against Sweatshops

Interfaith Worker Justice

Hardcore Socially and Environmentally Responsible Gift Guide

B Corporation
"B Corporations are a new type of corporation that use the power of business to create public benefit"

TOMS Shoes

The People´s Shoe
¨Followers of the brand appreciate the brand’s commitment to the people, with a percentage of profits going to The Starfish Project, a humanitarian organization in Cambodia that provides medical aid and housing to the needy. The brand’s catchy aesthetic and faultless principles make it a fine addition to any wardrobe, as recent converts Santogold, Interpol, Vampire Weekend and Metric can all testify.¨



Books
Born to Buy
Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic

Film
 --> Behind the Swoosh with Jim Keady & Educating for Justice
After raising issues over Nike's business practices, Jim Keady was forced to resign from his job as a soccer coach. He went to China and lived on the "living wage" of a factory employee for one month. Behind the Swoosh documents what life is really like surviving on factory wages. More information about the campaign to end sweatshop labor can be found at Educating for Justice.

Death by Suburbia

Artwork at the Center for Global Education (Windhoek) depicting Hector Pieterson

A majority of all my actions are motivated by one desire - to get out of the suburbs. I often joke about white suburbia because it is an easy target; I still don't know how to reconcile my appreciation for a perfect childhood with confusion over a sheltered interpretation of reality. Even when asked about my blog title, I explain that it applies most when I am Stateside, it is there I feel most like a foreigner. I chose Furman's study abroad program because I wanted a dramatic break from the lifestyle attached to this package. I recognize this is not a new idea- what kid does not want to differentiate themselves from the familiar? However, what I wanted was complete liberation - not only geographically, but intellectually - ideas that made me so uncomfortable the only solution was to change. My resolution was to study abroad ... as often and as in as many countries as I could.

Needless to say, I was quite pleased with myself after our first week in South Africa. Our theme was quite simply "go big or go home." Our transition was two-fold: our initial accommodations were comfortable while in Johannesburg thanks to the hospitality of St. Benedicts. We had single rooms at the Church guest house, a beautiful garden, daily Mass we could join, and yes, we were in the suburbs. The subtle nature of our transition stopped at the Church gates. Intellectually, it was a plan of shock-and-awe. Day one we heard from a former freedom fighter involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, visited Soweto, the Hector Pieterson Museum and saw President Mandela's home. Careful not to waste precious night hours, we heard a lecture from Dale McKinley - a Furman alumnus whose current claim-to-fame is being kicked out of the South African Communist Party. In addition to briefing us on the anti-privatization movement in South Africa (in preparation for our visit to Orange Farm the following day), he explained how one goes from a former ROTC cadet to a key actor in South African politics. Finally, our first week concluded as our group set out in pairs to experience the authentic South Africa- we were staying with a family for the weekend.

When I learned we would be staying in Soweto for three nights, I was anxious. I couldn't believe that we would be "living" in THE Soweto- famous for its politics, leaders (two Nobel Peace Prize Winners on one street) and its violence. Even knowing the Center for Global Education chooses families not only willing to share their homes, but their life stories, the weekend is an extraordinary test of people skills.

It is only ironic that our first weekend spent in the real Africa was in the suburbs. Most of us, including our professor, expected our homes to be in a lower-income areas (as subsequent home stays were). Soweto is the infamous product of the Group Areas Act, legislation passed by the apartheid government to physically separate the races. The black population was relocated to a specific area to service the white residents. Apartheid legalized structural oppression - the system anchored non-whites in a position of poverty and desolation. The Soweto of today threatens the Africa stereotype - the township synonymous with poverty and tin shacks has evolved into an African suburb with large manicured homes.

Depth was added to the width of my formal studies of South Africa the moment I entered Soweto as a guest. I found a sanctuary of culture, a community alive with a spirit of survival and resistance. I was able to witness normative activities (grocery shopping, visiting family, trips to the mall) as they revolved around historical icons. In spending time with my family, I realized the implications of exactly where I was - we would casually pass by Mandela's house, the streets made famous by the 1976 student uprising or the hostels that bear witness to the horrendous migratory labor system. I was introduced to the face of the struggle at a dinner table in Pimville; I was told of the brother who sacrificed his body for freedom - tortured by the police for his unwavering belief in democracy.

My time spent in one African suburb was sobering - the neighborhood is saturated with resistance. Even the students rose to fight the system; children my age and younger organized themselves in a non-violent protest and were mercilessly gunned down by the police in 1976. The echoes of the fight still ring today in the wake of those died while fighting on the streets. I can only imagine if all neighborhoods were as politicized.

View of Soweto

During apartheid, pollution from energy sources was released in the black neighborhoods while the residents of Soweto lacked electricity. When energy providers finally serviced Soweto, they were built outside of the township. The useless reactors now serve as a reminder of not only the apartheid legacy, but environmental racism

The infamous hostels - "housing" for migrant workers mining gold and diamonds


Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto

Our adopted family

Trashcan lid used by students as a shield in the '76 uprising

Johannesburg newspaper from February 2010

Nelson Mandela's home
8115 Orlando Street, Soweto
Johannesburg
Hector Pieterson - Soweto Student Uprising in 1976

Behind Enemy Lines

There seems to be a war of branding being fought over diamonds. The West has no problem parroting the "blood diamond" mantra while simultaneously fueling the demand for the stones, while African countries continue to supply them. Neither side is making systematic changes, both exploit the market: some pull an income from films such as Blood Diamond and offer alternative companies that carry "certified stones;" at the same times, African states are calming consumer's consciences and promising that "diamonds are for development." The film has exposed this issue to millions of people in an authentic way, but I think more can be done to provoke the status quo. Imagine if they put just a few resources at the end of the movie, such as an organization like War Child that works with former child soldiers, a union, or a transparent/ethical company!

With just the basics about blood diamonds and the Kimberly process, I went with my history class to tour the Kimberly mine in South Africa. I was masquerading as a tourist, but fully aware I was behind enemy lines. The mine has successfully transformed their brutal history into a modern tourist destination; it boasts a sleek building with shops, a movie theater and a platform to view the "Big Hole." Only in one underground corner display, did the panel echo the truth - it described the living conditions of the miners, the infamous hostels, as "concentration camps." The tour guide and museum completely sanitized the history of the mine, and are consequently rewriting history.

I used to trust the Kimberly Process. I placed confidence in the fact that stones were legally certified by meeting international criteria. However, after learning of the systemic oppression that literally forced the men to migrate in order to sell their labor, I will no longer admire or plan to ever purchase a stone. They are not directly funding a war, but they fuel a version of low intensity conflict.

At the end, I was only tempted to purchase a postcard in order to write home, "Greetings from the Empire!"


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I am currently traveling in rural Botswana with extremely limited internet access, so please check back for the pictures that belong to this post.

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The Big Hole



PR



"ambition, enterprise and vision"



Eye of the Storm



Infamous Board Room



From the museum itself, "when they came to the Diamond Fields, most were unaware that this time living conditions would resemble that of a concentration camp."

Chemical Classrooms

Dear teacher:
I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education.

My request is:
Help your students to become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

- Author unknown; in Haim Ginnot, Teacher and Child

How ironic it is that the ninth most Conservative university in the country has fostered my complete politicization. I left the manicured classrooms of my university so I could feel the truth. I am on the battleground of ideas: the slums, diamond mines, churches, NGOs, and homes of where pedagogy becomes reality. This type of experiential learning has weight, facts now have "heart and bones."

My classroom no longer allows neutrality. A recent visit to Durban, South Africa champions this experiential pedagogy. We spent one morning in February learning about ethics and environmental justice in a chemical classroom. South Durban is a product of the Group Areas Act, neighborhoods gerrymandered by the apartheid regime of South Africa. Indians/"coloureds" and blacks were legally moved to the dirtiest neighborhoods. Their homes, schools and streets are now saturated with deadly chemicals. The same chemicals countries in the North have not only outlawed, but made movies about, are leaked into the community. In the wake of the apartheid state, the Rainbow Nation must now fight environmental racism. The poor and oppressed are now left to resist the multinational corporations. Those with the least agency - the smallest amount of money, education and mobility - are only used for one thing, their labor. Their bodies are exploited. For example, if you live in south Durban, the risk of cancer is increased by 250%. As our virtual classroom followed the route of the "toxic tour," we learned that students in a school crammed between paper mills and chemical storage facilities suffer a 52% asthma rate!


After bearing witness to South Durban, it would be a crime to leave as simply more human. I hope we all follow the advice of Des, our guide, and "stand up and be counted."

Why learn in a vacuum when we don't live in one?

our "Toxic Tour" classroom

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To offer your support to those fighting in Durban, start by using the resources available through the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.

Petitions are available here, by issue

Rules of the Game

If you are wondering, "didn't we already do this?" Yes - I did travel with my school in Latin America, thank you for reading my blog.

8 countries and 3 years of an undergraduate degree later, we have grown up....

Hola, from South Africa. Study abroad number 2.
I will not be faithfully sending an update email because they take forever to write and the audience participation declines when you receive 6 emails a semester from people who are all over seas and want to tell you about it. Well, I am abroad and still want to tell you about it, so here are my rules:

I will not write about finding myself.
I will not write about saving Africa.
I am well aware that Africa is not a country.
I do not want to move to Africa.

I will not be objective.
If you assume you can feel a pull to the left, it will in fact be a white American's interpretation from time spent in the margins, learning from the oppressed.
"I will explicitly be writing with one bias - a preferential option for the poor."
Finally, all of this writing will be done while NOT wearing a safari vest and in fierce loyalty to Latin America.