Experiencing the world from a different vantage point is one feature of living here, as is the case I suppose for any American who spends time in another country. I have gotten a chance to see some of the ways that South Africans view international events, which is a quite different lens from the one my news of the world is filtered through at home. I have also been exposed to how the United States is viewed in South Africa. While both of these perspectives are accessible to some degree from home, I am appreciating the frequency, variety, and proximity that being here affords. The US is much discussed here, both in a current events context, such as this past week when, on environmental grounds, the US opposed (along with and Netherlands) a $29 billion World Bank loan to South Africa for the completion of a coal-fired power plant. There are also frequent (and logical) social and historical comparisons drawn between our two countries. For me, it has been particularly interesting to have my "home" society and culture reflected back to me through the mirror of South African coverage and commentary, both formal and informal.
Here are a few recent examples of how the United States has come up in public discourse here: numerous parallels being drawn in classrooms, the media, and conversation between slavery in the US (and also the treatment of the Native Americans during our expansion) and apartheid; hearing a climate change scientist mention US plans to dump shiploads of scrap iron at sea as one of the threats facing the South Atlantic Ocean; and listening to a speaker at a Human Rights Day assembly indict IBM for its role in facilitating the implementation of apartheid laws (the subject of a current court case against IBM and other major corporations).
One that has caught my ear is a radio interview excerpt that has been played for weeks now as a promotion for the talk show. It has an American journalist (I assume) claiming that a “dirty little secret” of the US is that soccer is actually very popular but a different impression is conveyed by a “racist” media because “soccer is not popular in the white suburbs.” With as popular as soccer is in the US, particularly in the often very white suburbs, this seems an incomplete explanation for soccer's perpetual neglect by a media dominated by football, baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing, x games, and golf. Here, especially with the impending World Cup, soccer shares the media stage with cricket and rugby, although the fan bases are largely divided on racial lines.
Anyway, I won't be coming home with a passion for following either cricket and rugby, but I do plan to keep checking the websites of South African newspapers as a way to sustain my exposure to the lens and mirror that they provide.
* Speaking of South African newspapers, here's an UPDATE for those rapt by the “ET” and Malema dramas... reports emerged this weekend, though from where it is not clear, as they conflict with official police statements, that Terre'Blanche was found naked and with a used condom nearby. The obvious inference is that he may have been engaging in a sexual liaison with one of his accused murderers. To me, this information smacks of a smokescreen or other such effort to discredit Terre'Blanche (as if he hadn't done a good enough job of that on his own!). Click here to follow the saga and its breaking news for yourself.
Meanwhile, Malema continues to stir up daily controversy and to be defiant toward more moderate voices in his party. The latter seems both a growing group and increasingly impatient. In a shrewd and hopefully sincere move, President Zuma came out strongly against the ANCYL leader's recent conduct.
And, of course, Jonathan Shapiro is offering his astute commentary on it all...
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