John Stupart.com

Or perhaps I’ll simply come back to this world as something cool, like a dolphin or wombat… Who knows; that was just the title of the song I was listening to while writing this. It seemed appropriate.

Spending so much time on campus has made me fully aware of just how shitty the catering is. From the plethora of Greek-owned franchises on campus one can choose from an array of equally-expensive stores where you can buy stupidly-overpriced coffee or, in the case of the Senate House’s store, serve it yourself from shitty containers into cheap Styrofoam. I’ve recently begun the trek to a more upmarket coffee shop which is part of the Origins centre principally because they treat their customers like human beings.

The converse of course is a stupidly cheap Indian joint that sells what is theoretically authentic cuisine for stupidly-cheap prices. However, their samoosas taste like saturated oil, their biryani is a yellow mass of congealed fat and cheap-ass rice, and the rest just looks inedible. Needless to say, John’s lunch consists normally of a packet of chips (crisps) and a bottle of flavoured mineral water. When those Greek sheisters stop being so bloody mercantilist I might return some form of patronage to their horrid establishments.

Food has been a primary thought of late, as last weekend saw my speaking partner and I taking part in the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Gauteng Provincial Debating Championships. Sounds grand, except it was run by a single, incompetent student and they fed us one slice of cold pizza for the weekend. The tournament itself was a joke, and I kinda want my weekend back, returning to Gauteng in truly miserable spirits. To celebrate this horrid weekend my brother and Irene, a small-but-potent pixie who happens to be in the debating union as well, had some truly excellent pizza in this arb Italian restaurant in Emmerentia. My emaciated frame truly reveled in this decadence.

Justifiably angry at the tournament fail-cake

No matter. July sees Wits hosting the National Championships, which promises to be truly awesome, thanks largely to a ridiculously-large amount of sponsorship from Standard Bank. No matter how badly we might do in the actual competition, the entire tournament promises to be truly epic.

On a more housekeepingish note, I have once again tweaked the blogroll, adding one Sarah Richmond’s Yosh! site to my illustrious pagentry of amazing co-bloggers. Sarah has the unfortunate tendency to change blogs every couple of months, but this one seems to have been hanging around for a while, and she writes rather prolifically about life in Sapporo, Hokkaido. In some of my early posts I mentioned being one of only two South African ALT’s living in Hokkaido. Sarah is the other city-dwelling one. Aside from taking roughly 5 hours to find her apartment the first time I drove the six hours to her city, we never really had much contact. Nonetheless, you’ve heard my tales of the countryside, now read about her exploits in the city.

And lastly, on a geekier note, I play a PC game called America’s Army, developed by the US Military funnily enough. That’s irrelevant though. My clan has won the latest and largest tournament in South Africa, meaning that I am in fact fucking awesome! Of course there’s no prize money or anything, but it’s nice to be on top of something .

Music today:

Update 1

This weekend saw the Wits Invitational Debating Championships roll through. Consider that my total number of ranked debates number in single figures, to say I was rusty is an understatement of note. No matter, I was speaking with my brother and was thus ably carried through to the finals on his pack like a Coleman backpack. The debating is an afterthought, mind you, whereas the focus of the weekend should be squared around the meeting and greeting of new and interesting people.

All said and done the championship was great fun, and I managed to conduct myself with a slightly more dignified stature at the yakka party this time round. Mostly because I didn’t lose my glasses and nobody’s shrubbery got demolished! Also, trampolines are seriously awesome fun! Pictures shall follow as soon as they are uploaded.

Update 2

I have decided to forsake my meagre extra savings from work and head off to Mozambique for a week (the rhymes!) with some good friends and sibling. Cheap seafood, awesome rum, white sands, blue ocean and an almost mine-free countryside will be awaiting me after Christmas! Personally I’m looking forward to such simple things as stuffing my face full of prawns while swigging rum from the bottle and throwing sand at Jonathan. In all, an utterly admirable and productive pursuit. Unlike Thailand et al, this will be a decidedly more sedate experience, and unlike heading to Tokyo, decidedly small in scale. That’s important. If it was hectic and awe-inspiringly huge in travel plans or size of cities visited, I don’t think I’d be inclined at all. I want to chill out. Maybe snorkel. Maybe laugh at a communist, perhaps even eat something exotic if I feel up to it. We shall see.

Update 3

I’m currently listening to Rise Against’s new album much on the recommendation of one of the debaters who’d inhabited our house. They’d been here since Thursday. There’s an eery quiet in the house now. Like all the kids have left and – in the pristinely clean aftermath – there’s nothing much going on at all.

… before anyone asks, it’s clean because the maid came today, not because we cleaned. No.

I wrote this for commentary, but I feel it’s suitably pop-culturish enough for public consumption.

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While waiting for my errant sibling to pick me up, I went to Rosebank mall and watched the new documentary on the ANC Behind the Rainbow. Aside from reminding me just why I love the beautiful complexity of politics so much, the film provided an extremely fascinating extra layer of insight into the party that rules our country.

The most prominent aspect of the movie which stuck in my mind was the history of the ANC’s top leaders, from Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma to Ronnie Kasrils, Mac Maharaj and ‘Terror’ Lekota. Through interviews with these leaders (excluding poor aging Madiba) and others, the different histories and profiles of the ANC’s top dogs are absolutely enthralling. The deep friendship developed between Mbeki and Zuma during their time in the resistance in Swaziland, including a stint in a Swazi jail, highlights just how much history these two folks have.

Overarching this is the amazing resilience the ANC has proven to possess in actually avoiding becoming just like every other generic failed African government. From the Sunset agreements (the compromises during power negotiations at what I assume was CODESA) through to Polokwane, it’s amazing to see just how the party is able to prevent absolute deviation from relative good governance. The documentary showed the difficulty faced by Mbeki in achieving a compromise at the talks with the old apartheid government, as well as the post-1994 abandonment of RDP and adoption of GEAR as proof of his notion of preventing economic collapse while still achieving the tenets laid out by the Freedom Charter. This is ultimately the undercurrent theme of the documentary; the Freedom Charter and trying to achieve its aims while still steering a new South Africa into prosperity.

It’s no secret that Thabo Mbeki was seen as the highly-intelligent man who seemed to repel any dissenting voices to his vision. All through his career, Mbeki has been faced with criticism for what could easily be perceived as turning his back on the people for the sake of the ‘capitalist classes’. His skill in the CODESA negotiations, through to his insistence on moderations between Freedom Charter and national stability has contributed to the growing opposition to his presidency, both at the state and party level. The rise of Zuma is thus partly attributed in no small way to Mbeki’s recalcitrance.

Zuma is actually portrayed in a far more sober and collected light than what the mainstream media have previously done. It’s quite fascinating to see the origins of [i]umshimi wami[/i] and just why and how Zuma has manipulated his supporters so. The documentary further highlights that there exists no fundamentally conflicting policy difference between Zuma and Mbeki, but rather the absolute polar opposite personalities of the two. Odd to think that these two shared a cell in Swaziland and formed a solid brotherhood with one another.

The ANC as a whole is shown to function as this almost otherworldly entity which is capable of purging itself of leaders who might steer the party towards that spiralling doom of other African presidents and dictators. Much like the Mbeki-inspired Sunset Agreements, Polokwane 2007 was necessary to prevent the president from serving a 3rd term; something rather indicative of a leader holding just a little too long onto power. Make no mistake; the ANC is a far more sophisticated entity than what many external detractors portray it as. And regardless of leader, it has so far maintained this self-regulation. Democracy may be a bit of a joke at a national level, but within the ANC, the party acts in what can only be defined as undeniably democratic. The irony would be delicious if it weren’t so bitter a pill to swallow.

The documentary doesn’t say anything any politically-aware South African wouldn’t know anyway, but it does show it in a very interesting light, and in its own right serves as a potent indictment of Mbeki, Zuma, Lekota and the leadership of our country. It also shows the internal workings of the ANC in an amazingly frank and honest depiction through interviews. Now playing at a Cinema Nouveau near you.