Real Troubles – S’bu and Abahlali Attacked

S'bu Zikode at Constitutional Court, May 14th 2009

Luckily work is so very busy, otherwise I’d get a free moment and be forced to dwell on the horrific fate of our friend S’bu and Raj’s Abahlali friends and colleagues.  Abahlali baseMjondolo is a shackdwellers movement in South Africa.  Our relationship with S’bu (who has lead the movement) has certainly broken any stereotypes I might have had about peoples movements, or people who live in shacks.  S’bu is a sophisticated thinker, a brilliant writer – and someone who’s been committed to the cause of the shackdwellers even after severe personal injury – he was picked up and beaten (quite randomly) by the Sydenham police last year.  Now, in this latest raid – apparently instigated by the ANC and supported by the police – they destroyed his house.  I’m hoping he, his wife and children are fine.  The settlement reports several deaths.  Although I speak of him, of course it’s the settlement that’s traumatized.  I think about a beautiful photograph in Raj’s upcoming book.  It’s a picture of Moses Mnewango pouring over council documents by candlelight in a shack, reading, studying, learning to support the fight to gain decent housing.  To move beyond the shack built on the slopes around a waste dump.  

I’ve been reading ‘The Lazarus Project’ by Alexsandaar Hemon.  Three stories intertwine – one from the turn of the 19th to 20th century, a jewish man, Lazarus, arrives at the door of a constable in Chicago and through a kind of misunderstanding is shot.  We learn about the context, the automatic slandering of the man as a ‘jewish anarchist’ and the targeting and harassment of his sister and broader community.  A second thread describes the horrors of the Bosnian/Serbian war, including the random killing of civilians and the more organized violence, as told by a photographer as he journeys back with the protagonist of the novel ‘to the homeland’, back to Sarajevo.  A sub-thread in the protagonists searching through records for the backstory to Lazarus reveals a pogrom in Moldovia.  The details of these take me back to 1984 in India.  And just when I finished the book I got a call from Raj about the Abahlali targeting and violence.  It’s very hard to wrap my head around how the proclivity to this kind of violence persists, how we can do such horrific things to each other. 

S’bu and Abahlali colleagues and friends are in the midst of a struggle.  There’s not much I can do.  Sign this petition if you know enough about the scenario that you feel comfortable in doing so.  The goal is to at least let the local ANC politicians and the police know that there’s a broad international community that knows what’s going down – they cannot keep perpetrating this violence and imagine they will go unnoticed.  It’s not much, but it’s a start.

We Know Nothing

Nothing - Nic; Photo by Jaroslaw Pocztarski

My Hero says:  My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know…”  I say, on this blog - “…goofiness is important, it reduces the probability of b.s.“   

Only difference is, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, aka “Hero”, that suggests that moment of doubt, the moment of saying “I don’t know”.   And when I say I’m trying to reduce the chance of b.s., I’m first and foremost talking of reducing my own b.s.  I suspect that’s not Taleb’s starting point.  But I’m going to fantasize that on reading this he will crack a perfect joke, take himself down a notch, and remain My Hero.

In fact, my own viewpoint aligns with My Hero’s.  That is, an awareness of ‘not knowing’ is the right starting point for much analysis or action.  Unfortunately,  being told that one doesn’t know more than one knows can seriously disturb many a machismo and ego.

I’d like to interlace Disney & that 2002 web phenomenon “Hot-or-Not”, to illustrate.  With my own perverted sense of weekend relaxation, I spent one Saturday standing outside the downtown Disney store in the rain, holding posters of Winnie (leaking paint) and protesting the sacking of sweatshop employees in Disney’s factories in Bangladesh.  It was a a complicated case.  A contractor was found to have violated some labor laws in his subcontracted factory, so Disney peremptorily closed off the contract, resulting in all the employees losing their (already miserable) jobs.   

I had struggled with the case.  There were many complexities, not least of which was the contradiction between Disney following it’s ‘ethical’ guidelines to justify a move that resulted in real terms in even more damage to the workers than the initial violation.  Was it as simple as Disney giving itself a checkmark for following it’s ‘socially responsible’ principles hoping that no one dug around to see that it’s scorecard in real terms had just gone even more negative?  Or should I be considering the corporate viewpoint, of the spirit “but what’s a good well-meaning company to do?”  Sarcasm aside, though, I do have some sense of how hard it is to toe the line of a principle you’ve set yourself especially as it’s ramifications play out in a complex society.  For example in this case, was it more important for the company to send a strong message to its’ other contractors, which in the longer run would be beneficial to workers everywhere? (Just for the sake of argument – I’m not assuming that this was truly Disney’s consideration – and there are in fact some much better alternatives).

After thinking about it, I decided that even though I couldn’t balance all the possible pieces of this puzzle to land on a comprehensively supportable course of action, I should still join my couple of friends to protest Disney.   My philosophy, that we generally operate with an incomplete understanding of all the factors at play especially for distant scenarios, was a starting point.  Against this backdrop, I felt it eminently sensible to put in a pitch with what what was likely the statistically underrepresented side  – the side of the sacked workers. 

There are many such situations where I feel that supporting the underrepresented side is justified, even if the scenario seems complex, when the impact may be severe along the axes of health, food, shelter.  Disney didn’t need my help at all.  By being silent, I was in effect supporting Disney, not the workers.  Somewhere someone would adjust all the parameters and make decisions that would impact the scenario.  Me, I could do my bit to just ensure that those whose voices aren’t heard as often get a bit of support.  If you think of all the time that you’re spending not acting and contributing to the statistics (noise included) of the default, then a few times of standing in a crowd protesting the other side just can’t be wrong. 

That evening, through some random connections, I ended up hanging out with the guy who founded ‘Hot or Not’ and found myself explaining my day’s activities and my rationale.   But Hot (Not) was not only unconvinced by the rationale for my actions but also grew steadily angrier.  It became apparent to me that for someone who had just convinced himself that he was smart beyond the norm, having just recently been catapulted into sudden fame and perhaps even fortune, what I was justifying was in turn pulling the rug out from under his rationalized sense of his position in the world.  It was obviously upsetting to his sense of self that I was putting the weight of my personality behind a world view (similar to My Hero’s dare I say) where his newly proven smarts could never be sufficient or perhaps even useful.  I guess when your future wealth may depend on the profound and quantifiable metric, ‘degree of hotness’, you can’t bear to hear about how it may actually be less useful than something unassessed, something immeasurable at it’s core.

San Francisco Perfection

Last Saturday, fried from computer screen adoration (you know, when it’s you and your screen and you’re glued to each others eyes…) I finally broke free. 

It started ominously – a drive to the office to pick up papers at 7am on a Saturday morning.  But Spring was upon us and the views of the bay and city in the morning sun finally had their way with me.  I called Marco to check if he was at the Alemany Farmer’s market.  There’s no better way to start a San Francisco Saturday than at the peoples market (then; today).  But for once, Marco wasn’t going.  As I arrived at our block, I couldn’t turn towards home.  Instead, I found myself continuing to drive and ended up on Geary, racing into the Pacific Ocean.  The day only got better:

• The first peek of the Pacific from Geary, rolling downhill to Loui’s Diner and the Sutro Bath ruins. If I wasn’t in a motoring mood, eggs, steak and hash browns with a view to ochre mud stumps and a raging ocean would have been the call.
• Turn off into the park with the top open to take in the colors and smells of springtime, our brooding gnarled california trees and turning a corner, the sudden view of stoic bison, unreal in their mass and stillness.
• Over the bridge to Old Oakland.  Lemon riccotta pancakes at Cockadoodle Cafe, talk about politics surrounded by refreshing color after (it’s true) mostly white San Francisco.
• Dropping Anirvan back to Berkeley and had to extend the conversation as we often must.  But this time, a Berkeley tradition – sitting on the Shattuck median (an 8 ft mound of dirt and grass) with cars puttering by on either side, under a ‘don’t sit on median’ sign. Berkeley gets plus points for this urban rendition of hanging out in a meadow.
• Driving back into the city with a favorite view of San Francisco (from the Bay Bridge) on display for longer than usual as I crawled through Saturday afternoon traffic.
• Quick dinner at Out the Door under the SF Shopping Center with the girls and Marco to provide the sole, slammingly dressed, male counterpoint. Marco can do orange & pink, together - no more need be said.  For food, the brightest, most unexpected salad I’ve ever eaten, Grapefruit & Jicama salad.
• Mosey on over to 111 Minna for what started a little slow (it was a fundraiser for lawyers after all…) but with a favorite DJ from old times spinning dub and then the live action of Sukhawat Ali Khan and friends, it was raucous.  On this night, the art included Amal‘s photographs relaying stories of taxi cab drivers. 
  Maneesh (afore-mentioned DJ) said – ‘reminds you of Azaad days, doesn’t it?’  Minna, now more standard fare as a hipster art and music joint, used to be smaller in the day, and Saturday nights often included a collective of DJs (‘Azaad’) spinning South Asian-influenced dub, beats, hip-hop, trance and drum n bass.  Took me back.  Time for a party.

Sutro Bath Ruins. Photo by: the tahoe guy

Join us in transitioning ASATA to new leadership

ASATA focuses on the challenges of racism, exploitation and communalism. Our actions emphasize our connection to the South Asian community, but our vision of change and solidarity is cross-group and communities. Photo by Eric Mar.

If you’re in the SF Bay Area, have any familial, coincidental or other relationship to South Asia, are politically inclined, understand and engage with the haves and have-nots of power, then join us in taking the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) to it’s next phase.  We’re meeting on Sat Mar 28th at 11am, and then again to continue transition conversations on Apr 7th at 7pm.  If you’re interested in joining, re-joining, re-engaging with a San Francisco Bay Area institution – especially if you’ve got some time to devote to a leadership position - drop me a line at miniATbrainbytesDOTcom  

ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, is a San Francisco Bay Area group working to educate, organize, and empower the Bay Area South Asian communities to end violence, oppression, racism and exploitation within and against our diverse communities.

Lost Parkway

I’m lost – have they really closed the Parkway Speakeasy? Via Facebook I learned that some of my friends had joined the Save the Speakeasy group. I rarely join groups on Facebook, but this one was a no-brainer. I joined, only to find an image of a poster announcing their last night on Mar 22nd 09.

Even the closure of Stacey’s didn’t hit me like this. The Parkway Speakeasy was something else, not just a cheap movie theater with food and wine, but great vibes, a quintessential Oakland crowd (in it’s variety and unpretentious but hardcore taste) and of course the exceptionally silly, giggle-inducing preview videos from the owners before every show – it made me gloriously happy to just walk in.

I’m truly devastated. I might even use twitter to mourn with those who are in the same hole as me.

Bulgarian Musings

My most excellent sis-in-law has begun not one – but two! – blogs. The first, about her life in Bombay/Mumbai as a bulgarian expat living with my charming but handful of a brother. The second, about a shared passion – food food food!

What you find is what you believe

As a virtual world teaming with avatars, Second Life shows promise as an experimental platform for social psychology. The first research paper that exploited this got attention at the end of last year – the authors claimed to have found evidence that some details of how we interact in the real world transfer to our avatar-avatar interactions. Now, there’s a great video out from NPR that brings these findings to life.

The video has been making blog rounds, but the study behind it is being taken as mantra. Yee and colleagues’ work is indeed groundbreaking – but exploratory, not conclusive.

Stranger than virtual

In Oman, TV channel hopping, we land on the Qatar channel. Camels are racing in one long straight course. Alongside them, on either side of the roped-off course, are 2-3 wide columns of cars, 4x4s. The camels are galloping, with an occassional one or two trotting – very fast. For a moment I’m confused. It looks like they have no riders. Then our eyes catch the strange-looking contraptions tied on the camels back. Believe it or not, the contraptions are little robots. The one function we see them perform is occassionally whipping the behind of the camel, as a camel jockey would. We’re transported into a futuristic world – I could imagine seeing this in Second Life, but instead these are the sands of Qatar, a hop skip and jump from our physical location in Muscat.

But the robots feel doubly strange, like something somewhat familiar, with a twist that throws one completely off. And then it sinks in. The robots are short and squat. In fact they look like children. The robots are in fact a replacement of the terrible practice of roping in children, sometimes forcibly, as camel jockeys.

Here’s a piece in the National Geographic about the shift in Qatari camel-racing practices. They also have a clean shot of the robot.

Smashcast hits Jetset Show

Just watch it – make sure you’re plugged in and/or wait for the show to download once. I’m very sorry for some of the girls comments on ‘why such few girls in Smashcast’. We’ll see if we can’t prepare a podcast on this at our next session. But cheers all in all. Just that moment with Vincent talking about downloading audacity, open source software etc. takes us miles ahead in breaking those dastardely stereotypes. Cameo by Moi. I had said ‘no’ to their videotaping me at the conference, figured it should be all about the Smashcasters. The cameo’s from some clever interjection of still photographs into the video. Permalink to show.

Coffee Cart Days

Bostoners had Cheers, or at least TV-watchers had Norm. I and a few other lucky ones had Lydia, Ricardo, and ‘the coffee cart’. They’ve now left. I’m still here. In memory of what to me now was an Oakland institution. Small enough to know everyone’s names, a welcome stop on the way to BART and work, it always put my mind in another space where it was okay to take a few minutes to loiter, chat, commiserate, catch up. Kathy and Chris. Julio. Endo. Theresa. The man with the snazzy neckties. The woman that called in her orders of nonfat vanilla flavored drinks. The Mexican Chocolate I never tried. Ricardo’s famous latte with designer ‘hearts’ swirled on top. Walking in one day to notice Raj’s CV on the counter (“What a talented guy!”) Jaunts to the coffee cart with mummy and papa to introduce them to the gang. I’ll miss it all – but hopefully this sets the stage for the next exciting phase for Lydia and Ricardo, away from the heartaches and stress of entrepreneurial life, and towards some stability and security.