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.

Arm Your Voice

Banksy

"You're collapsible - you break down and build up fast."
Favorite compliment

"You're never here, never present."
Most common critique


After years exiled in suburbia, I went to college to leave - to play the system and consequently gain exposure to all that I could absorb. Eight countries and three years of an undergraduate degree later, here I am, writing from Southern Africa, compliments of Furman University. Why would I stay in Greenville, South Carolina when I could take the same class in Southern Africa?

I surrender to a state of carpe annum because it is the only way I can justify my education. It is how I convince myself not to leave it all behind and just start doing some form of tangible work - building a school, monitoring elections, coordinating logistics for a safe house. When my American passport can stop bullets and bombs I need an impressive reason to play with ideas.

I consciously choose to fight back by paying tuition to learn about poverty. Each year, class, and country makes me more dangerous, more informed. Surely it is a crime to consume knowledge and not take a side! We should all be branded radicals after exposure to an education from the margins. After learning from the oppressed, neutrality should no longer be a viable option; there should be a burden to provoke the status quo. Systemic oppression can only be maintained through ignorance, dependent on apathetic consumption. So, why not ask who is making our clothes or preparing our food?

Each textbook is a weapon. I feel more powerful with each new idea and speaker. I can feel the momentum building as we imagine a different, just world. I use my privilege to "arm my voice" with words, not weapons. I continue to stay in the tower of academia in honor my brothers and sisters disappeared from their classrooms for wanting a liberating pedagogy. In honor of them, I refuse to play ideological dress up. I will not put on and take off ideas as they become fashionable. If students living under repressive governments are dying for what they believe in, I will justify every opinion I proscribe.



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Textbooks used in-country are the following:
The Invisible Cure
Sickness and Wealth
Mandela's Children

In addition, we have a course reader with excerpts from books such as:
White Man's Burden
The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World's Poorest Patients

Haiti: Justice v. Compassion

It was inevitable - Haiti has left the headlines. Today is the first day the New York Times has not echoed the fight for survival in Haiti. It seems the Apple Tablet is now more interesting. We are moving on. For those left in the wake, now is the time to differentiate between compassion and justice.
David Brooks was initially correct in his January 14^th New York Times article when he states, “this is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story.” However, Mr. Brooks then proceeded to construct a Eurocentric narrative effectively blaming Haitian society for allowing an earthquake devastate their island: “responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect [. . .] some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.” Labeling a country such as this a perpetuation in paternalistic compassion – feeling sorry for Haiti because they are not as enlightened as their Western, white neighbors. But, Haiti continues to fight back by issuing a call for justice, not simplified compassion.

The earthquake has catalyzed a critical discussion on international aid effectiveness in a country plagued by structural oppression. The disaster is not as natural as the news sound bites would have us think. Earthquakes of the same scale have hit places such as California and Japan, and these areas have successfully bounced back. We can give Haiti a chance to become a San Francisco or Tokyo by calling for systemic change. Please start fighting for justice by signing the petition to cancel Haiti's debt and rebuild with grants, not interests tainted with loans.

Even in the wake of the disaster, tourism continues to turn a profit from Haiti. Cruise ships such as the one from Royal Caribbean dock on protected Haitian beaches. The fact that armed soldiers are stationed to defend vacationers from starving, desperate survivors should be an indication of compromised ethics! Even with some passenger refusing to disembark, the company continues to parade their floating cities around the beaches, turning the Haitian fight for survival into another market, “poorism.”

The best advice on an appropriate response to Haiti comes from Alanna Shaika in Nobody Wants Your Old Shoes: How Not to Help in Haiti. She outlines suggestions such as: do not go to Haiti and use vital resources needed by the local people and do not give old, expired or worthless goods blocking the importation of needed medicines and supplies. In addition, a favorite organization that has been consistently recommended is Partners in Health, the organization co-founded by the infamous Dr. Paul Farmer. Another effective aid organization is charity:water who gives 100% of public donations to water projects. Lastly, it is important that a cycle of dependence is not perpetuated. Now is the time to employ local Haitian talent to rebuild their beautiful country. As the hype fades and human-interest pieces echo less miraculous stories, the international community must remain in solidarity with the Haitian people. We have shown our support with the overflow of donations, now we must sustain it.

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The best advice on Haiti has come from Alanna Shaikh in
Nobody Wants Your Old Shoes: How Not to Help Haiti

Recommended Organizations: Partners in Health (co-founded by the infamous Paul Farmer)
charity:water (100% of the proceeds used)
"Find a charity you can trust" Charity Navigator
Or text Haiti to 90999 for a $10 donation to the Red Cross

As it starts to become increasingly difficult to find news on Haiti, blogs seem to be a strong alternative.
Tales From the Hood is currently on the ground and reporting back as a veteran aid worker.

A version of this post was originally written for the Furman newspaper, The Paladin in February, 2010

McToursim

tour⋅ist

–noun

	a person who is traveling, esp. for pleasure.

After 34 hours - 26 in a plane, 1 transnational & 2 international flights - I am writing from Australia as an official tourist. I am embracing this label like never before. I needed a break.

After my exams, I had to move out of the cabin and was turning in my key and talking to the RA on duty. We were discussing his trip to S. Africa over the summer and my coming one. I asked if the trip influenced him in wanting to work in Africa and he said he thought about international business. My reflex answer was "ethically?" I later apologized for my cynicism and introduced myself. My Christmas holiday started at that exact moment.

I decided to take my vacation to reflect on my experiences with tourism. How would it compare to Bosnia? Australia has the tourist model down, but the constant theme of consumerism is frustrating. (I have 28 minutes of my computer battery and only half a latte before McDonald's kicks me off their "free wifi.") Theme of the trip: first world tourism requires not only consumerism, but corporate materialism. Four weeks in and six left in the Balkans, considering myself and a veteran of guided tours, I chose to take the mature route. I started taking photos of other travelers. This game has since jumped the border and started down under.

The Winners from the Balkans:

The Classic

Best Dressed

camera + tripod carrier

Touring War

At least my brother tried to blend in

My family as tourists

My favorite: combat boots + matching outfit + backpack with 3 locks!
(He was a professional)

From Australia:

I wish I had some profound conclusion on tourism other than I support it. After all, I am destined to be a chronic one. I spent three months in the Balkans confused while I played both tourist and sojourner. I came to realize that war is now for sale in Bosnia and wondered if sustainable tourism is truly possible. They have turned the disgusting conflict into a new market. If people are willing to buy pieces of the war, at least they will have a souvenir that provokes. If a trip is collapsed into a quest for the ultimate purchase or coolest photo for that year's Christmas card, then why leave home? Where is the line between poorism/"hug-an- orphan-vacations" and informed pilgrim? If people visit a slum as a poorist, it should catalyze critical questions around systemic poverty, structural oppression, etc. I think we start by looking for the fight/struggle of that country. There is always a pulse below the surface.

Advent Conspiracy