Winding down my SA journey to just over 3 weeks - still loving and not loving at the same time. On the lighter side of things soon after I arrived I discovered one of the best watering holes in town. At night downtown Joburg turns into the land of vampires and in Newtown - a kind of concrete constructed gentrifried area is a little “safe space” around Market Theatre - is the anything but gentrified island of the Couch and Coffee renamed by me as the Couch & Potato since once you are there you just sit and sit and sit.

The great thing about the C&C is unlike most bars you always end up talking to people - maybe because it attracks a lot of Joburgs Black arty crowd which is why people are cool about talking to strangers without any stress and the staff are great also. A couple of weeks ago V and I bought some crazy jewellery from Prince.

Whilst I was in Durban I was moaning about the watery beer on offer and since then I have been drinking Windhoek (Namibia) recommended by Richard (thanks) and if you like watery cider then there is Savannah - not recommended!

On to the more serious. I missed the festival of the Time of the Writer in Durban with Ngugi, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Aminata Sow Fall. Luckily I caught the latter at Wits last Monday. Am ashamed to say that although I had heard of her work, I had never read any of her books. She spoke about one of her best known novels, The Beggars Strike, Francophone literature and literature and language.

The idea behind the Beggars Strike [A Denunciation of Tyranny] was the question “what would happen if a beggar refused the food offered in Zakat” (one of the 5 pillars of Islam requiring the giving of alms). You give not because of your humanity because it is required. It then becomes a subversive act of the poor “I refuse your offering” thereby deny you the reward you seek from Allah by the giving of Zakat. On writing in French as opposed to her own language, Wolof” she says “Writers create their own language through language” - writing in French does not in any way marginalise Wolof or any other African language - it is a reality and when she feels that she can only express certain feelings or actions in Wolof, then she uses Wolof.

Most moving to me personally was her response to her feelings about her home, Saint-Louis (an island at the mouth of the River Senegal, Senegal which she described with a broad and proud smile as “the sight of my happiness”. What a privilege to be able to have a place in one’s life that is the sight of your happiness and to travel in a world of imagination.

On Thursday, the Special Rapporteur on the situation for human rights in the Palestine Occupied Territory, John Dugard spoke at Wits University, invited by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Dugard painted a wholly depressing picture of the situation in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Humanitarian and human rights violations by Israel ranging from the imprisonment of Gaza where 90% of the population live on food aid and 80% live below poverty level; the displacement of some 50,000 people who can no longer access their land in the West Bank due to the apartheid wall; the presence of 1/2 million illegal settlers in the West Bank; the illegal transferring of East Jerusalem residents to the West Bank depriving them of their Jerusalem rights; prevention of freedom of movement - there are no less than 500 check points in the West Bank leading to restriction of travel, access to work and health facilities; targeted assassinations which apart from killing of civilians in the process is judicial murder without trial; separate roads for Palestinians and Israeli’s; separate number plates for Palestinians and Israeli’s (the only visible sign of the apartheid - Israel is clever not to have visible signs of it’s apartheid policies).

Tags:
Johannesburg + South Africa;
Aminata Sow Fall; Senegal; Palestine; Israel; John Dugard;