What I learnt in 2008

There is a saying in cricket that, if you are going to go for a big, shot go at it hard. This might sound obvious, but there is a tendency among batsmen, even when deciding to play a specific shot, of not committing to it fully, in the hope that they can prevent themselves from making a mistake as they strike the ball. But it is often hesitation, coupled with a lack of confidence, that can be a batsman’s downfall.

So what has this got do with what I learned in 2008? Let me explain.

The year 2008 will be remembered for the collapse of the global economy, with giants such as Lehman Brothers going under. But it was also the year of the bail-out, with governments pouring trillions into failing banks. Apparently, without the bail-outs, a ripple effect could have ensued, destabilising the entire economy and resulting in mass unemployment.

So the lesson is that, if you are going to undertake a business venture, do it on as big a scale as possible. The more people tied into your transactions and borrowings, the more likely someone will come to your aid. Being in R1-billion debt is not too different to being in R1 000 debt if you cannot pay your dues. In other words, and paying homage to McDonalds, if you are going to go for it, go large.

Robert Mugabe has successfully employed the 'go large' strategy too, coupling it with a passionate belief that he is doing the best for his people. But Mugabe, in the words of blogger and UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, proves that “there is no more destructive force in human affairs – not greed, not hatred – than the desire to have been right”. But believing one is right is often not based on rational thought.

Robert Burton, a neurologist and author of On Being Certain, argues that although we may feel we know something and we think it is a product of reason, this is generally not the case. Scientific evidence suggests that feelings of certainty stem from primitive parts of the brain. These parts of the brain are independent of reasoning and conscious reflection. In other words, the feeling of being right is about emotion and is a psychological state.

This suggests that we should be wary of our own belief in certainty, whether this concerns politics or economics. Sadly, however, 2008 taught me the irrational opposite. When it comes to making money and furthering a political ideology or cause, it seems that fortune favours those who believe, whether misguided or not, that they are right and pursue their goals with vigour.

At the end of 2008, the Israeli government put this into practice by killing over 500 people (most of them civilians) in ten days, apparently to prevent Hamas from sending rockets into Israel. But, according to journalist Robert Fisk, Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, making the response savagely disproportionate. Of course, Israeli deaths are a tragedy too, but the overwhelming force used by Israel, besides other factors, seems to have stunned the international community into silence.

So this is my advice for 2009: whatever you decide to do, do it with the force of a hurricane and the confidence of a prizefighter, who cares nothing for consequence. The world likes single-minded arrogance, or at least does not act against it and sometimes even rewards it.

Fly as high as you can in 2009 and forget about bombed children, unemployed labourers and those with cholera in Zimbabwe because, after all, falling from 100 m has the same result as crashing to the earth from 100 000 m. What is more, flying at 100 000 m with gay abandon is a lot more exhilarating and seemingly no one will try to stop you, in case they crash and burn too.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 January 2009 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Fear in Gaza by Barbara Weyerman, OPSI

The latest invasion of the Israeli defence forces IDF in the Gaza Strip ended with the massacre of the Al-Athamna family. A few days before the 8 November, when seven shells hit their house and killed 19 of them, “a tank entered the garden, destroying hothouses, trees, pipes and a generator, until it hit a wall. The soldiers made a hole in the wall and entered the house, gathered all the family members and sent the women to a room on the first floor. The men were put in the kitchen and bathroom. The soldiers collected all the cell phones, and with leashed dogs, searched all the rooms on all four floors. They called out the names of all the family members….After two hours, the soldiers left. They returned three days later through the hole in the wall. They again gathered all the family members, counted them, searched and left after three hours. ‘They knew very well who was in the house, how many children, how many women. They knew very well there were no terrorists and no arms in this house,’ said Majdi”, one of the surviving family members. (Amira Hass in Ha’aretz, 13.11.2006). – During the 9-day long invasion of Beit Hanun, altogether 80 Palestinians were killed and hundreds were wounded by the IDF. David Becker and I arrived a day before the invasion started. We came to work with the team of the Women’s Empowerment Project of the Gaza Community Mental Health Project (GCMHP). This was our 7th visit; we had been training WEP staff twice a year in the psychosocial approach since 2004, when we began by working with the team on an accompanied self-evaluation of their program for the support of women affected by domestic violence (see publications:“Overcoming fragmentation – linking counselling and income generation”). This time, we spent many hours talking to the team members about their experiences of the preceding few months. Four hundred people have been killed since late June 2006, when the IDF intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip. These attacks were hardly noticed because of the media focus on Lebanon. One of the team members mourned her fourth brother; he had been killed by gunfire from a helicopter a month before. The women talked about other close friends and neighbours they had lost. They said it was even more difficult to lose someone in the internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas than at the hands of the Israeli army. “If he is killed by the Israeli, he is a martyr, if he is killed by a Palestinian, the life is lost for nothing.” To make it worse, every death calls for another death in revenge. Families are divided, brothers are on different sides, and everybody is armed. But the women’s worst fears are of the Israeli operations. Six women had recently received a call that their house would be exploded. Such calls, they said, are made by IDF 15 minutes before the house is destroyed. However, none of the staff’s houses was blown up. Nowadays, they said, it is very hard to know whether a call is real or if it is made by other Palestinians to terrorize people. One woman described how struck by panic she was when she received such a warning, unable to move or speak. “My hair stood up straight from my head, fear is the worst feeling - no words can describe it.” Others reported not being able to sleep for nights after such a call. One woman said she and her children sleep in the same room: if the Israelis attack from the sea, she moves to the back of the house, if the neighbour receives a call that his house might be destroyed, she moves to the front of the house. The children cling to her. When one of them wants to go to the toilet, she has to accompany him or her; but then the other children are scared to stay in the room alone and come along too. All the women described how the children cling to them and wet their bed. Each staff member has had experience with bed-wetting children. Even though or because everybody recognizes bed-wetting as a symptom of fear and sadness, it is considered shameful. When talking about their children, the fragmentation and disintegration of structure becomes evident. Adults can't really protect and calm their children as they are themselves too scared and too vulnerable. One woman said she didn't have the words to speak to her children about the killing of five people they recently witnessed. Another staff member described how she panicked when she saw her daughter coming back from the market, covered in blood. The girl stood next to a man who was shot in his head by another Palestinian. One woman described how she and her family were locked into their house for many hours, during another attack on their neighbourhood. A tank was positioned just outside their house. They heard the sounds of gunfire and soldiers conducting searches. Her husband, a political ex-prisoner, was terrified. As soon as the tank left, he shouted at his children; he was agitated and aggressive. “I told him to stop it, it is not the children, it is your fear,” she said. The staff members hardly mention such experiences when they talk about their clients, women who seek advice and support because they suffer from domestic violence. And yet, there is a clear connection between the deteriorating political and economic situation, the lack of perspectives, the decades of occupation and the daily experience of humiliation and powerlessness for men who try to defend their honor where they still can – in the family. The growing conservatism and the control of and restrictions against women in Gaza. WEP works to supports victims of violence and supports campaigns towards changing discriminatory laws that condone and perpetuate such violence. For additional background on violence against women in Gaza see the Human Rights Watch Report: A Question of Security. Violence against Palestinian Women and Girls http://hrw.org/reports/2006/opt1106/

Author: Barbara Weyerman, 22/11/2006

Sport and politics uncomfortable bedfellows

Oddly, it was the old chestnut of whether sport and politics mix that came to mind while watching the golf Ryder Cup recently. This was not because the Ryder Cup is particularly political, but because it appears so apolitical. The two world super economic powers, the EU and US, competing is presented as a jolly good struggle going back for decades. On one level, it is simply that, yet on another the tournament is laden with symbols. The ostentatious economic power driving the event, the lack of racial diversity on the course (sorry, Tiger) and in the stands, George Bush Snr relaxing and taking in the action, and that it is one place where people can chant “USA! USA!” these days without starting a riot, all belies a wider context in which the event took place.

2006 Ryder Cup K Club Dublin
Credit: Vivienne Smith

Of course, one would not want to turn such events into political footballs. The tournament’s acontextual and trouble-free environment is exactly what makes it easy watching. But it does beg the question – how closely should sport and politics be related? The Olympic Charter opposes political abuse of sport and athletes, a point with which most of us would agree. Take, for example, the recent Formula One Grand Prix in Turkey. The Turkish government abused the occasion politically. Mehmet Ali Talat, who presented the winner’s trophy, was introduced as the “President of the Northern Turkish Republic of Cyprus”. This was a piece of political theatre, as it is only Turkey that recognises the northern part of Cyprus as a separate entity. The result was a $5-million fine by the sports governing body.

The tricky issue, however, is not about the political abuse of sport, but whether political abuse can be prevented by sport. The most notable case was the sporting boycott against South Africa, aimed at ending apartheid. The South African case set a precedent, and it continues to throw up complications today.

Arguably, the South African sports boycott was made easier because apartheid was declared a crime against humanity. But where do sports boycotts stand in relation to other types of abuses and actions? Should the US have been prevented from playing in the Ryder Cup because its government is engaged in an illegal war in Iraq? Should there be a sports boycott, as many lobby groups profess, against Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians? I do not want to get into the validity of such cases, as I will upset someone and I am not very fast over 100m, but the cases clearly demonstrate the intricacy of the relationship between sport and politics. The mere mention of these examples is, no doubt, enough to make some people spitting mad. Perhaps, the real question then is: why does the issue of sport and politics evoke such an emotive reaction? One reason is that sport is a way of taking refuge from the world of politics. Sport pretends there is no wider context. The sports arena is allegedly an uncomplicated place, where the best person wins. But the best person does not always win: socioeconomic status, political conditions and equality of opportunity, not to mention drugs, can all influence your chance of success. Sports have also always been mixed with nationalist fervour. They can also be used to cement political projects. Think of the impact of Nelson Mandela’s donning the Springbok rugby jersey in the early 1990s. So, believing that sport is unrelated to politics is about as unrealistic as thinking Tiger Woods is going to miss a six-inch putt. The so-called gap between sport and politics is a false distinction.

The question, therefore, is not whether sport and politics are linked, but how we can discuss them in a rational way. Or is looking for a constructive and unemotive approach to the sport and politics debate as dim-witted as attempting the pole vault with a matchstick?

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 6 October 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Edward Said dies

Malise Ruthven
Friday September 26, 2003, The Guardian
Edward Said, who has died aged 67, was one of the leading literary critics of the last quarter of the 20th century. As professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, New York, he was widely regarded as the outstanding representative of the post-structuralist left in America. Above all, he was the most articulate and visible advocate of the Palestinian cause in the United States, where it earned him many enemies. More...