Living the loopy Gautrain dream

South Africa has many things to be proud of, including a peaceful political transition, many famous scientists and musicians, breathtaking natural wonders and, most recently, the hosting of the 2010 World Cup.

However, if you speak to many South Africans, at least those living in and around Johannesburg, it seems that the Gautrain surpasses all these monumental achievements.

The 80 km mass transit railway system that can quickly ferry passengers between the airport and Sandton City, and soon a range of other destinations, seems to be loved as much as biltong and Castle Lager.

 Gautrain (Image by Nithin bolar k / CC BY-SA)

The Gautrain must be the only train in the world that has a Facebook page with some 10 000 people “liking it” and a Twitter page with some 7 000 followers. The Heathrow Express going between Heathrow Airport and London, which has carried over 60- million people since its launch in June 1998, does not even have a Facebook page.

Against this backdrop, my concerns about people who feel they can be ‘friends’ with a train on Facebook aside, I felt compelled on my last visit to South Africa to take a trip on the famed Gautrain.

There is no doubt the train is comfy, fast and what my grandmother would have called swanky. The stranger part of my journey, however, concerned my attempts to leave the train when I finally got to my stop at Rhodesfield after visiting Sandton.

As I attempted to leave the train, I was told I could not as the compartment I had entered was for people travelling to the airport only. Oddly, I, along with six others, had to watch as other people metres away left the train and we were held prisoner in our luxury compartment.

A bolshie security guard inhospitably informed me that an announcement had been made about the fact that the compartment I was in was for airport-bound passengers only. Of course, I protested, saying that, although I looked stupid, if such an announcement had been made I would have moved compartments. I then resigned myself to the fact that I was trapped. I said I would proceed to the airport (next stop in two minutes) and there swap compartments and travel back to Rhodesfield and get off.

To my amazement, I was told, in no uncertain terms, and now surrounded by four security guards, that I could not do that. The only option was to go to the airport and then travel back to Sandton (passing Rhodesfield) and change compartments there, and then return once again to my stop. At this point, I gave up, convinced I was in the Twilight Zone.

So I – and the other six detainees – settled down for another trip to Sandton, a quick carriage change (a walk of 3 m) and a second return journey. Finally, after travelling back to Sandton and then again to Rhodesfield, I was let off the train.

Needless to say, my Gautrain experience left me with mixed emotions. On one level, I was pleased to finally be off the train as I had feared a slow death in my plush seat, as I travelled endlessly up and down between the airport and Sandton. I figured I would have starved to death in the end as the fines for eating on the train were set at R700 and I only had R200 on me and a half-eaten peanut bar.

On another level, my enthusiasm for the project did not wane. It is great to come from a country like South Africa, which sometimes tries the impossible, quirks and all. The Gautrain is a symbol of what Africa should strive for, notwithstanding the need for a little flexibility at times and recognition that, given the challenges South Africa faces, progress is not always going to be as easy as moving from point A to point B.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 July 2011 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Place or national identity and affinity for strangers

I realised recently how fickle I am. This happened while watching the 2011 US Masters golf tournament on TV.

Going into the last day, 21-year-old Northern Ireland prodigy Rory McIlroy was leading and it looked like it was going to be a dream win for the young man. But he then fell apart, slipping despondently down the leaderboard. I felt my heart sink.

Photo by Ottis Bunning on Unsplash

However, suddenly, South African national Charl Schwartzel emerged from the pack and snatched the tournament and the coveted Green Jacket. My mood lifted instantly, and I found myself filled with national pride.

My rapid shift in mood and allegiance are, on the surface, easy to explain. After all, I am a South African living in Northern Ireland, and it makes sense that I feel some sort of affinity for both players.

I know Hollywood, McIlroy’s home town. I have friends who are members of the golf club where he grew up playing. In fact, some of them even placed bets on him winning the British Open years ago when they saw him playing as a boy. More tangentially, I was also once on an aeroplane with the wild-haired young man (and 250 others).

As for Schwartzel, I had heard of some of his previous golfing exploits, but knew little else. He grew up in Johannesburg, as I did, along with over six-million other people. I have never shared any form of transportation with him.

So my real connection to these two individuals is spurious. My support for them is seemingly linked to some strange sense of national or geographic identity.

So, what is it about a sense of place or national identity that makes so many of us feel affinity for strangers?

Clearly, there is something comforting in feeling part of a bigger whole, especially when the whole is a nation. According to academic Anthony D Smith, there are many ways to define nationalism, including ‘the process of forming a nation’, or ‘a movement on behalf of a nation’, but nationalism can also be a sentiment or consciousness of belonging to a nation. Smith notes such a sentiment can exist without it being linked to an ideology or political belief.

Sport is one of the arenas where such a sentiment finds fertile ground. Although I see myself as a multicultural global citizen, seemingly, I am also an easy victim to some forms of national schmaltziness, especially when it comes to my country of birth, South Africa.

But does national sentiment really explain my support for McIlroy?

I now have a residential and familial connection with Northern Ireland, which probably played some part in my support for him. However, I think my support for him is probably linked more to the underdog syndrome. Most of us love the story of the unexpected winner, the small-town person made good, and when David defeats Goliath. The underdog appeals to our sense of righteousness. When the under- dog wins, we are left with a sense of possibility.

But how deep is such support?

We should never forget that supporting the underdog generally only feels good when they win. Most people like to back winners, not routine losers. During the Masters, when McIlroy started losing, the broadcasters quickly lost interest.

But being filled with national pride and defining yourself as part of a group have other dark sides. The more we define ourselves as part of a group, the more we inevitably delineate ourselves from those not part of our group.

In this context, I am embarrassed to admit there was an even darker side to my picking sides in the Masters. Actually, I now realise, with hindsight, that it was not that I really wanted the South African or the young gun from Northern Ireland to win, but what really delighted me was that, actually, an Australian came second.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 6 May 2011 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Transformar las sociedades despues de la violencia politica

I am delighted to announced that the Spanish translation of my book "Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health" is now available.

The blurb in Spanish notes:

Este libro aborda el papel de la salud mental en la justicia durante las transiciones. El lugar principal lo ocupan los y las supervivientes de la violencia y sus problemas y, sobre todo, el relato de cómo el proceso individual (micro) de sobrellevar una atrocidad se relaciona con el proceso político (macro) de gestionar el pasado. Parte de la premisa de que la forma de tratar el impacto de la violencia política es inseparable del contexto social. Se intenta demostrar que para muchos supervivientes de una traumatización política extrema, la curación está directamente relacionada con los conceptos interdependientes de verdad, justicia y reparaciones, y también con sus propios intentos de configurar la sociedad. Este enfoque amplio con respecto a la salud mental espera promover un replanteamiento útil tanto para los y las profesionales de la salud mental como para los y las que trabajan en la justicia en períodos de transición. ISBN: 978-8472905375 Edicions Bellaterra 2011

You can purchase the book on Amazon (UK) or Amazon (Spain).

Proper political analysis of Libyan conflict is needed

I do not wish to come across as stupid, but I have no idea what is going on in Libya. Granted, my historical knowledge about the country is patchy, but I have been making an effort to follow the recent political uprisings in the media. Unfortunately, however, my labours have left me none the wiser.

I guess it goes without saying that Libya is democratically deficient in the extreme, and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is an old-school dictator who has lost touch with swathes of his people. However, I am also befuddled as to who constitutes the so-called opposition, their ideological positions and who is fighting who.

Obviously, given the media restrictions in Libya, it is difficult to get sound information, but I also think understanding the Libyan situation is being hampered by the instant-media revolution.

The Internet is currently flooded with video clips about the Libyan conflict filmed by ordinary citizens. Many of these clips are revealing and, at times, harrowing. Conflict is shown in a raw, unedited form, and the brutality is indisputably visible. Renowned broadcasters like the BBC are also increasingly relying on such clips to disseminate information.

But, generally, these clips lack analysis. It is easy to be drawn in by the violence they display and the human stories behind them. However, most of the videos do not explain the complexities of the current Libyan conflict. It is also difficult to get a sense of the persons behind the camera, their motivations and the veracity of their claims.

On the odd occasion when an analytical report is aired, these too are peppered by an avalanche of comments and views. This is typified by a scrolling text bar at the bottom of TV news reports generally made up of SMS comments or tweets. I remain to be convinced that it matters that John from Essex thinks “Gaddafi is a crackpot that dresses funny”.

That said, I am not a media purest. I do not think that professionally trained journalists should hog the airwaves, the Internet or newspapers. Intuitively, concepts such as ‘citizen journalism’ appeal to me. The idea that ordinary citizens can report on events that affect their lives and get their stories out into the world is important. This is inherently democratic, especially in a world where big media companies often control the media and what we hear.

But is publishing SMS comments really giving people a genuine voice? Are YouTube clips newsworthy and genuinely informative or just making the mainstream media lazy? Why spend your time as a journalist trying to write a complex article about a conflict situation when you can get a bigger audience by showing a dramatic YouTube clip and then commenting briefly on it?

In addition, are the consumers of news being taught that news is no longer about analysis but rather drama, visual sensation and sound bites, measured by the number of hits on YouTube?

It is fantastic to live in an age where a video can find its way across the world in minutes. And I want to live in a world where ‘citizen journalists’ can give voice to the voiceless and shape history. But are we really using new media tools to their best potential? Are we not confusing the speed at which a quantity of digital media can be collected and the rapid ease of dissemination of material with quality? Surely, we can all do better than this.

So, please, can someone out there do a proper political analysis of what is happening in Libya? I do not even mind if you throw in an odd video or an SMS from some bloke living in the Karoo — just tell me what is going on in an informed, well-researched and learned way. I will be eternally grateful and will post a ‘thank you’ on my blog, which, of course, you are free to comment on.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 25 March 2011 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Lessons for combating stress

University is meant to be educational and I did learn a few academic things while I studied at university. But there were also other life lessons I learned. One of these popped into my head again recently as I struggled with an unwieldy workload.

The lesson came from a comment made some 20 years ago by a professor of mine. This professor, after bumping into me in a corridor, asked me how I was. I said I was feeling drained and had a holiday planned. The professor replied, to my astonishment: “You do know that holidays are for people who do not know how to manage their time.”

Of course, her statement is dubious, and I am sure the occupational health depart- ment of the university would have disagreed, but it has always stayed with me. I have taken the words to mean that, in between any busy schedule, you should find time for a ‘holiday’. This might mean taking five minutes for a quiet cup of coffee, listening to an audio book in your car, or, perhaps, stepping into a museum for 30 minutes if you happen to pass one while rushing somewhere.

In fact, in my more extreme moments and, perhaps, suggesting that some of the madness of my professor has rubbed off on me, I sometimes try to convince myself that I am always on holiday and work is the thing that continually interrupts it.

Nowadays, with roles reversed and me working at a university, I always make a point of asking students how they are in the vain hope I have some effect on their lives too (although I don’t repeat my professor’s mantra). Students, like most of us when asked this question, generally say they are very busy, despite some of them being masters of factoring in relaxation (aka drinking) time into their schedules.

‘Busy’ seems to have become the buzz- word of our age. But being busy has many different meanings. There is also a lot of cache attached to being busy. Saying you are busy is linked with social power. It says you are needed by others and engaged in important activities.

I generally use the term ‘busy’ more when I am stressed. At these moments, I am often not very focused and I tend to waste a lot of time by writing lists, which just make me more anxious about what I have to do, often immobilising me. According to Jared Sandberg, who took time to research people like me, about “30% of listers spend more time managing their lists than [they do] completing what’s on them”.

It seems that when I am at my ‘most busy’ is when I have lost perspective on what really needs to be done. For me, the proof of this lies in the build-up to a proper holiday (not one of my little in-the-middle-of-day ‘vacations’, as my professor suggested). When I plan to leave the office for a few weeks, every task on my list seems the most important thing in the world. Invariably, not everything gets done. However, one week into the holiday, what seemed really important a week before miraculously seems less significant.

Therefore, I have concluded that managing your time is not merely about organising tasks; it is about getting the tasks into perspective. It is partly a state of mind. But developing a healthy attitude to what is important and what is not seems to require time and space for reflection.

So, perhaps, my professor had a point after all and we all do need continuous ‘stress holidays’. This would benefit both our health and our productivity, and work would surely benefit from a regular dose of perspective. My New Year’s resolution is to take more regular breaks – so, right now, I am off to work on a list of actions needed to make this a reality.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 28 January 2011 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

It’s a rip-off – get me out of here

It can be alarming when you realise you are not a nice person. This epiphany about myself came to me while watching (against my will, I should add) the UK television show I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here.

Let me explain. "I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here", for those not based in the UK, involves dumping a group of celebrities in the Australian jungle for a few weeks. They are then subjected to various humiliating and seemingly dangerous trials. This normally involves being showered with insects or being submerged into tunnels with rats and snakes. A notable activity is the Bush Tucker Trial, which, generally, means eating worms, cockroaches and a mandatory kangaroo penis and testicles. The winning celebrity is the one who stomachs the most awful things.

Presumably, the audience, for some perverse reason, enjoy watching the celebrities being mildly tortured. The celebrities, seemingly, agree to the humiliation and simulated danger in return for the publicity.

But back to why I am not a nice person. The revelation came when I found myself, while watching I’m a Celebrity, being overwhelmed by a desire to see the participants being swallowed, one by one, by an enormous snake live on TV, then regurgitated and finally squashed by a bouncing castrated kangaroo.

I do not consider myself to be a violent person. So why my sadistic reaction? My reaction is linked to the duplicity implicit in the shows. Celebrities are never in real danger. Everything is carefully stage- managed to ‘entertain’ the public for money. There is no ‘reality’ involved.

Annette Hill, in her 2005 book on reality TV, notes that reality TV is a catch-all phrase for a wide range of programmes featuring real people. These range from ‘on-scene’ shows (like those set in hospitals) through to shows where real people are placed in different contexts, like I’m a Celebrity, and, most famously, Big Brother.

The latter are peculiar ‘reality TV’ shows because they are not about real life at all. Although they feature real people without scripts, the shows themselves are contrived and supervised by a vast crew. Each task that is filmed is planned, thought through, reactions anticipated, and guided to a predictable conclusion. The show is heavily edited to create characters – the villain, the coward, the nice guy, and so on. Once the ‘true’ characters have been revealed, viewers can decide if they like the characters or not, and then fully engage in the drama by, generally, voting, for a price, for their favourite.

This is where the real exploitation of viewers takes place. Viewers are taken on a so-called authentic ‘journey’ with the characters, and they are tricked into thinking they now know these celebrities. For this pleasure, they have to part with their cash in telephone voting.

Reality TV programmes cost about seven times less to make than drama. The programmers are making massive profits through advertising revenue. They then have the audacity to take money from the telephone vote process. Some shows go even further.

The X-Factor talent show, for example, has the gall to release charity singles for the public to buy. Of course, supporting charity is worthwhile, but this is yet another way the shows can hoodwink the public into participation (righteous this time). The programmers are so greedy they cannot donate themselves to charity from their massive profits. They get the public to do this without undercutting their bottom line.

I am not an anti-TV moralist. Adults can watch whatever they find entertaining and, with informed consent, participants are free to degrade themselves for others’ gratification if they want. Television is not the cause of all social ills.

So, if you want watch this type of reality TV, be my guest, but realise it is all about taking your money. So, at the very least, please do not lift the phone.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 10 December 2010 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.