WTF is with us all?

I think, good Josh, that this one should start off with a raver warning... beware, rave below...

You know life is good when you LOVE almost all of it, the people, the changes and challenges, the evolution of self, work; that's where I'm at right now - in that weird space where I feel like I prefer not being on holiday.  Maybe that's because of a good holiday though.  Either way, enjoying the people in my life (though wish we lived not so far apart), a real feeling of purpose at work, and in that my profession of education, wild doses of exercise, lots of sleep ... the secret I guess is a patch of limited travel (though I have plans to make that sensational too).

The backdrop however is challenging - Hong Kong itself is going through a dark patch that is reminiscent of some of the challenges SA faces, indeed that the world faces. Here's a paragraph from the South China Post (interestingly a publication now owned by Jack Ma - definitely not anti-Beijing)

Do Beijing and Hong Kong officials really know what they’re up against? Those millions of people who have taken to the streets over the past seven weeks aren’t ordinary protesters. They are the product of a city that is tough to live in, that was created and shaped by forebears who were even more resilient.

Given what they’ve endured and been forced to accept, only the foolhardy would fail to take them seriously now that they have decided enough is enough.

Pampered senior officials with luxury government-provided housing and cars, hefty salaries, reasonable working conditions and generous pensions aren’t likely to relate  to ordinary Hongkongers. The squeezed

living, unaffordable rents, crowded commutes and long working hours of the majority are foreign to those who formulate the policies that govern Hong Kong. They would therefore have little, if any, comprehension of what is driving people onto the streets and the anger that has been mounting. Ignoring and doing nothing to placate is bad enough; trying to shut down avenues of protest and silence will only lead to disaster.

And I think that sums it up - the haves and the have nots - young people here fed up with being the celluloid that the film-script lives of the powerful are written on.  The result... stuff grinds to a halt - this is one of my initially failed trips to work earlier this week (the subway has been an effective target of protest; on this day I got as far as North Point - it took half an hour to get out of the bowels of the building.

I like the photo because of the looking guy on the left 

So I write this on the day that we've all had to go home - because of a typhoon this time (Macy delightfully quips that even Mother Nature thinks that Hong Kong needs a break :-), and I read the following in the Daily Maverick about South Africa:

And those are seriously tragic numbers, along with the fact that the economy contracted 3.2% in the first half of the year...literally W.T.F?!?  And then you remember - Jacob Zuma, corruption, state capture (and its fightback).

Earlier this week I read an article in the NY Times - I can't remember what it was about, but it had this delightful photo from a trump rally (many thanks NYT):

There's a lot to be seen in this pic - aside from the scary midfield mouth with its pearly-white gnashers (for example the African American dude, who seems surely in the wrong place? Nope).  The part that I'm going to call out is this, a zoom-in on the auntie on the left...

In particular her Rolex and house-sized De Beer's special.  And all of this reminded me of the pre-liberation Apartheid days.  Back then, there was an Afrikaans Band called the Gereformeerde Blues Band, whose front man was a delightful human called Johannes Kerkorrel (both words are a play on the Gereformeerde Kerk - the Apartheid Church - his name translating into the delightfully obscene "Johnny Church-organ".  They were a leftist alternative Afrikaans band, and one of their songs was "BMW".  And here are it's words (I don't think much translation is required... but if necessary, get help, it's delightfully ironic and comes off their album "Eet Kreef" (Eat Crayfish, but probably more directly translated into the Eat Cake of French revolution fame).

Ons ry 'n BMW
Ons ry 'n BMW
Ons gaan elke jaar oorsee
Ons ry 'n BMW
Ons sal jou nie 'n lift gee
Ons ry 'n BMW
Vir rylopers sê ons nee
Ons ry 'n BMW
Moet ons alles dan verniet weggee?
Nee!
Ons ry 'n BMW
Polina gaan maak vir die miesies tee!
Ons drink net suurlemoentee
Ons ry 'n BMW
Ons stem vir die PFP, die KP, die NP

Alles met 'n P, net nie die ANC, nee!
Ons ry 'n BMW
Moeni politiek praat hier nie,
Ons sal blou moord skree
Ons ry 'n BMW
Kan iemand asseblief my sonbril aangee?
En het enigiemand nog 'n idee?

The essence of the song is the savage un-generosity of the wealthy, their determination to stoop to any indignity, including fascism, just to hang onto their material goods.

And I think that is the thread that connects the fascist past to the Trumpist and Hong Kong present, along with the realities of the unemployed and the down-trodden.  The people clinging are made miserable by their lack of generosity and humanity, the people wanting are bereft of opportunity but fed an endless stream of desire, and beware those who have nothing to lose.  If you haven't seen The Great Hack (Netflix Documentary) try and give it a watch - savage stuff.

In case you think this is preachy - it's really not - here I am, playing my part in the great cesspool of a species gone nuts - and as I said at the beginning - really happy, but also slightly guilty and struggling to know what to do to contribute positively.

Eating pizza with the boys

Having a drink on Mils beach ... while Rome burns.

So what to do?  And Education feels like it's deeply part of the solution - learning - to work things out collectively, in collective interest.  I'll part with a description of Paulo Friere's educational dichotomy - reading the Pedagogy of Freedom at the moment - the stuff that the species needs, or else...

"There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the 'practice of freedom', the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."