SA Rocks

I don’t ask a lot from my readers very often, but today is one of those days where I’m trying to crowdsource some information about South African culture, subculture and all-round coolness.

Here’s a list of questions:

- Are there any cool or emerging forms of dance going on in SA? For example in the USA there were two styles that were called krumping and jerkin’… do we have any hot emerging dance genres?

- Do you know of a young Pro Social organization doing anything amazing or different in how they approach a solution to a problem?

Those are the questions, please email me or post comments if you have any info on any of the questions above.

Thanks!

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Cool idea, nice execution. I like it.

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I attended an event yesterday that was celebratory in nature. It was celebrating 300 young South Africans, hosted by Mail&Guardian.

It started off well enough until the keynote speaker stood up to talk.

Prince Mashele stood up and looked relatively unassuming. Little did we know we were in for a shock. His talk was well timed, well delivered and was perfectly placed for the right target market sitting in front of him.

This was his overbearing message:

Where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?

So I ask you this question: Where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?

I know where I am and what I’m doing. How about you?

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Globalisation as defined by the all-knowing wikipedia is:

Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional things or phenomena into global ones. It can also be used to describe a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

I would like to suggest that this process however beneficial is somewhat soul-destroying and robot-making.

Let me elaborate. When I studied international relations and history at university one of my professors taught a theory known to us as McDonalisation. More so than Globalisation is is the McD’s theory that concerns me. It concerns me that apparently any country that has a McDonalds in it has never gone to war with the USA, or after McD’s entered the country there has been no war raging with the USA. This sort of stuff bothers me. I feel like it’s taking our brains away, our sense of self-fulfilment away. I feel like we are losing who we are for a cheese-burger.

My interpretation of globalisation is probably not the broadly accepted or correct one but I think it applies and it is simple. For me globalisation simply means that the world is becoming a smaller place and those with the money and the power have greater potential to influence the world.

Let’s look at at this way; if an American brand makes it huge around the world it is simply another first world corporation making a buck. It might be a small success story of a guy who travelled across the US to make the brand and eventually made it, that might be it, but it is nevertheless more expected for this to happen. If however a person from Timbuktu designs a suit, sells one and within 5 months is all over the internet, TV and radio selling their brand, that is phenomenal. It is unheard of in fact.

It is the fact that this is unheard of that leads me to believe that we are losing ourselves.

Our children and teenagers have no pride in their local (read: South African or wherever you live) icons, designers, musicians, celebrities, politicians or any public figure. In fact, we mock them very often. This is unfortunately not because these public figures are not respectable and doing great things, but because it is more hip and in fashion to support internationally appealing brands. It is more socially acceptable to admire the P.Diddy.Dig.Dog.Daddy.Doo.Dah – or whatever the hell his name is – than to support and admire HHP. It is more fashionable to wear Luis Vitton than it is to wear any local brand such as Craig Native’s designs.

And then to make the circle complete we export our best assets because the local market wont support them. It’s a chicken and egg situation. Our best sports start, musicians, actors, designers, architects, doctors, engineers and any other profession are all leaving because the world is so global that they can.

I am not berating anyone who leaves. I am just saying that it challenges our national identity when we import international acclaim and export our best assets because they can’t cut it in their own country.

My suggestion is simple, we need to make it cool to be local, cool to be South African and cool to want to live in this stunning place.

The way to do that? Import less, produce more locally and export (at a very high price) our fantastic South Africanness. But don’t give it away forever and never see it again while replacing it with some pimping rapper from the USA who believes that Africa is his/her homeland.

Featured image: duke.roul

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Our decorated, passionate and complicated past has left us with some very interesting personalities and characters. But have we separated them yet? Have we branded Zuma a clown and Mandela an eternal hero? Do we remember Biko and forget Verwoerd?

I believe that the struggles of the past have left SA with a very tricky political conundrum. How do we forget what some of the “clown” did for SA in the past if they are being clowns now? Let’s be honest, the likes of Zuma are riding the crest of collapsing wave that was the past’s freedom fight. That fight is done with and there are real and tangible issues that these leaders need to be dealing with.

We, as a nation, need to pull together and rid ourselves of the belief that we need to entertain the “struggle” leaders who invariably are, themselves, riding out our pseudo-guilt about the past. Enough already.

Heritage day is a fantastic idea and in my opinion should be used by everyone in SA to reflect on our past, our heritage and ourselves and make some decisions about our future here in SA. Let’s start with our mentality toward our leadership because I think that it might just be a joke sometimes. The struggle is over, apartheid is dead.

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I know that there is going to be a lot of content floating around on the web in SA today, tomorrow and now this week with SA Rocks.

I am going to be blogging heritage-centric content for the next week. Hopefully it wont be boring, hopefully we’ll spark some interest, debate and reflection – but not too much reflection if you don’t want to!

The Sunday Times has an insert this week in there paper focusing on Heritage and have launched a website to match their print ideas – not sure about the situation of their website is at the moment but give it a try and see what pops up!

Then iCommons has initiated their project titled iHeritage. This is without a doubt one of the coolest online convergence projects that I have seen from any organisation in the world.

From the iHeritage website:

The aim is simple – to build an online repository of South African culture and heritage – as lived in the day-to-day lives of ordinary South Africans, to be added to the growing collection of indigenous content on Wikimedia Commons.

This is a really incredible project in my humble patriotic opinion. This collection of data, of history, is invaluable to us and our past here in SA. You can upload content in various ways such as:
Wikimedia Commons and Flickr. If you are going to use Flickr you need to tag your photos with South Africa and iHeritage. Simple.

But if you are the kind of person who likes to contribute on a face to face platform then get down to Rosebank in JHB NOW! You only have 2 hours left to contribute at the event in The Mall of Rosebank so make it count and get down there. If not, stick to the online areas I’ve mentioned above. This is a great project to follow up so keep a look out for new developments.

Coming up this week: I take a look at Sunday Times’ special Heritage insert. I will be analysing heritage, what it means and if I am truly African in spite of or because of who I am and where I’m from.

This should be an interesting and challenging blogging week for me here on SA Rocks. If you have anything to add to my week of heritage please email me and let me know your thoughts or suggestions.

Note: I would love someone from the iHeritage event to send me a blog post about how the iHeritage event was received and how successful it was! Do It guys, do it!!

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This weekend I attended an absolutely fantastic event called the Taste of Joburg. The event featured 17 of the top restaurants in Johannesburg as well as various other stands containing wine, fruit juices, ice-creams, pesto-sauces and much more.

There were no cash transaction so the currency of the day was the “Crown”. One crown represents R5. This made for interesting mathematical calculations from a journalist such as myself. I did spend quite a bit of money over the four hours I was present. Entrance cost R120 so just getting in wasn’t cheap.

No meal was more than 8 Crowns or less than 4 Crowns. When I say meal what I really mean is a taste-sized plate of food. None of the meals were a true restaurant size meal. Most were a single, smaller sized portion of food. When I say food what I mean is top quality cuisine from top chefs in Joburg and top restaurant. Many of the meals were really not worth the 8 Crowns they would cost so I skipped past those. I tried food from the Saxon, March, Roots, Yum and many others.

Overall everything about the event was classy, well-organised and fantastic to be a part of. It was not particularly well attended on Saturday but I think that was due to late advertising. I was impressed with the vast amounts of Marquees and the great state of the “Nice” toilets supplied by Berman Hire; nice toilets really do make an event of this kind a pleasure to attend.

Next years event is sure to be just as good and more than likely even better.

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Who would’ve thunk it?! Apparently the Archbishop is a braaier and has endorsed Braai Day on the 24th September.

What a stroke of luck, great marketing and brilliant endorsement for a project that I have shown support for before on this blog. I am so chuffed for Jan and the Braai Day team that the Archbishop is on board and showing his support.

I hear you asking for proof? I hear that you want to know what happens when the Archbishop eats a wors-roll, done, have a look:

I am definitely going to be braaing if given the opportunity on the day. Unfortunately I have a conference to attend so there are no promises! But I will be trying my best to braai, will you?

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I have recently had my positivity and that of this blog challenged in a very rational and structured way by a gentlemen calling himself “Preacher”. I have my opinions about his point of view and I will respond to his comments below:

Preacher’s comment:

I continue to grow incredibly frustrated with fellow South Africans who seem to share this mentality where a poor attitude is one of the biggest challenges facing the average disgruntled South African. Being positive about the situation in South Africa is one thing, being absolutely blind to the reality of the situation is another thing altogether. Every time you raise the issue of crime, poor service delivery or rising living costs, you get the same response. “Get off your behind and do something about it!” What most people fail to realize is that by paying your taxes and being a good citizen, you are doing something about the situation. You are making a positive contribution.

I am a white male aged 28. Being the indirect benefactor of Apartheid has automatically made me the villain, nothing more then another pale face who has to pay for the sins of his forefathers. Enough about my past though. I wanted to get that out of the way so that you could automatically put me into whatever box you put people like to put me into. Im sure you have a label for it. We South Africans love nothing more then to label and classify people.

Lets, however, rather look at my present situation and possible future. One that is shared by quite a few South Africans of which a fair percentage are beginning to feel the way I do. Perhaps the positive South Africans would be able to elaborate exactly where I am wrong in my cynicism and highlight exactly why I should change my attitude to that of a positive South African. I need examples here. After all, it seems that negativity is almost as big an issue as crime, HIV and unemployment. It has to be. I mean, every time you dare complain about the state of the nation you are called a negative whining spoilt brat. Perhaps once I have been enlightened my perception of the current challenges we face will be accepted with glee instead of the growing frustration I face daily. Im not quite sure. Making an informed decision alone just does not seem to cut it. Continue Reading

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Some may argue that it’s utter bullshit that only now, thanks to 2010, things are being done in SA to change the state of things.

I am of the mind that any sort of jump-start is worthwhile, necessary and relevant. Better late than never.

Do you think that things have been left for too long? Is 2010 to late and should we be making such a point of doing all this work specifically for 2010 world cup? Should we not be making a difference for the citizens of SA instead of the visiting tourists?

I am interested to know what your thoughts are.

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