Category Archives: politics
neo-utopian mashup 2: the project
“Neo-Utopian Mashup 2: The Project”. Lizza Littlewort, 2014.
neo-utopian sublime
“Neo-Utopian Sublime”. Lizza Littlewort, 2014.
nina simone – live at montreux – 1976, 1987 and 1990
Just incredible. I wish I could have seen her perform, just once.
Tracklisting:
1976
1. Little Girl Blue
2. Backlash Blues
3. Be My Husband
4. I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to be Free)
5. Stars / Feelings
6. African Mailman
1987
7. Someone to Watch Over Me
8. My Baby Just Cares For Me
1990
9. I Loves You Porgy
10. Liberian Calypso
11. Four Women / Mississippi Goddam
12. Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Leave Me)
lumumba’s ghosts: immaterial matters and matters immaterial…
The Archive & Public Culture Research Initiative (where I work) has invited Esther Peeren, author of The Spectral Metaphor: Living Ghosts and the Agency of Invisibility (Palgrave, 2014), for a week of intense discussion, academic exchange and engagement around the theme of the ghost/spectre both as archival metaphor and as conceptual figure in post-colonial and cultural studies.
Peeren is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Vice-Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies (ACGS) and senior researcher at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). Her current research projects explore global spectralities and rural globalization.
On Tuesday, 26 August, she will deliver a lunchtime lecture, Lumumba’s Ghosts: Immaterial Matters and Matters Immaterial in Sven Augustijnen’s Spectres, in the Jon Berndt Thought Space (A17, Arts Block, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town). In her analysis of Belgian artist Sven Augustijnen’s 2011 multi-media exhibition, Spectres (which focuses on the mystery of the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the independent Republic of the Congo), Peeren argues that a focus on immaterialities-as-spectralities prompts the viewer to take seriously that which is not immediately apprehensible, or deemed inconsequential. At the same time, it transforms our understanding of matter itself, since immateriality is inevitably implied in materiality, both metaphorically (materialities may be considered immaterial, insignificant) and literally (over time, materialities may transform, decay or even disappear).
Appealing to Jacques Derrida’s concept of spectrality, her analysis shows how Augustijnen’s work, especially the feature-length film included in the exhibition, moves the materiality of the immaterial and the immateriality of the material centre stage, and lays out the consequences of this double imbrication for individual and collective understandings of history, memory and the archive.
If you’d like to attend pn 26 August, RSVP to APC-admin@uct.ac.za.
miners shot down
This chillingly insightful documentary on the Marikana massacre should be required viewing for every South African. It’s two years tomorrow since that terrible, indelible day. The film is available to watch in full on Youtube for a few days only. Don’t miss this opportunity. EDIT: 18/8: The film is no longer available on Youtube. Please visit its website to find out about future screenings.
In August 2012, mineworkers at one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages.
Six days later, on 16 August 2012, the police used live ammunition to suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more.
Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, “Miners Shot Down” follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers.
What emerges is collusion at the top, spiralling violence, police brutality and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. If you still have any doubts that this was a premeditated massacre by Lonmin, the government and the police, this documentary will change your mind with a lot of previously unseen footage. Nobody will have an excuse after watching this to continue to blame the miners.
South Africa will never be the same again.
insight into patriarchy…
… gained from storyboarding an endless stream of jock lager ads:
Where men are a caricature of manliness, their sexuality depends on them always being The Ones Who Know, who are worldly and can sum up reality in short, pithy bro-repartee (bropartee). To achieve this, they need to simplify reality into easy-to-read contrasts, with rules in big type, so they don’t have to suffer the shrivelling-dick humiliation of being faced with complexity.
on the painfulness of compassion
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
― Andrew Boyd, in Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe (W W Norton & Company, 2002).
harun farocki – inextinguishable fire (1969)
“(1) A major corporation is like a construction set. It can be used to put together the whole world. (2) Because of the growing division of labour, many people no longer recognize the role they play in producing mass destruction. (3) That which is manufactured in the end is the product of the workers, students, and engineers.”
“When we show you pictures of napalm victims, you’ll shut your eyes. You’ll close your eyes to the pictures. Then you’ll close them to the memory. And then you’ll close your eyes to the facts.” These words are spoken at the beginning of an agitprop film that can be viewed as a unique and remarkable development. Farocki refrains from making any sort of emotional appeal. His point of departure is the following: “When napalm is burning, it is too late to extinguish it. You have to fight napalm where it is produced: in the factories.”
Harun Farocki, rest in peace.
nina paley – this land is mine
Animator Nina Paley, she of the wonderful public domain film Sita Sings the Blues (WATCH IT, please, if you haven’t yet!), also made another short cartoon a while back*, this one caricaturing the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
So, who’s killing who? Nina has provided a handy guide to the various historical groups HERE.
*Please do note that this was made in 2012, before the most recent turn of events.
an israeli soldier’s story – eran efrati
This deserves to be heard. The cynical manipulation and deception happening will blow your mind. This talk by ex-Israeli Defence Force soldier Eran Efrati was filmed in Denver, Colorado on March 3, 2014 as part of The Soldier and the Refusenik U.S. tour with Maya Wind. Eran talk about his experiences in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and then more broadly discusses Israel, its relationship to the U.S. and the global expansion of militarism.
Eran Efrati, 28, was born and raised in Jerusalem. After graduating high school he enlisted in the IDF, where he served as a combat soldier and company sergeant in Battalion 50 of the Nachal Division. He spent most of his service in Hebron and throughout the West Bank. In 2009, he was discharged and joined Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers working to raise awareness about the daily reality in the Occupied Territories.
He worked as the chief investigator of the organization, collecting testimonies from IDF soldiers about their activities. He also guided political tours and to the West Bank and worked to educate Israeli youth about the reality of being a soldier in an occupying army. His collected testimonies appear in the booklet “Operation Cast Lead” and their most recent release “Our Harsh Logic”.
Since leaving Breaking the Silence, his investigative reports appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Today he is active with the Israeli groups Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott from Within.
people in palestine being human
A mother and two little girls, Palestine. Lizza Littlewort, July 2014
Q: Lizza, did you paint this from a photo? I want to post these on Fleurmach and include context if there is some.
A: The likenesses are so bad there’s not much point referring to the originals… which I guess is a good thing, because I don’t feel like I’m violating anyone’s privacy. I’ve been working in a way where I strive for immediacy by going straight into paint with no pencil work underneath, so it’s pot luck how it turns out. The subjects are Palestinian though, I can say that much! I wanted to be sure to get a mood which is realistic. I want to do more of people in Palestine being human.
people in palestine being human
Three national coordinators of Tomorrow Youth Organisation, Palestine. Lizza Littlewort, July 2014.
on the vulgarity of “identity”
I feel with some passion that what we truly are is private, and almost infinitely complex, and ambiguous, and both external and internal, and double- or triple- or multiply natured, and largely mysterious even to ourselves; and furthermore that what we are is only part of us, because identity, unlike “identity”, must include what we do.
And I think that to find oneself and every aspect of this complexity reduced in the public mind to one property that apparently subsumes all the rest (“gay”, “black”, “Muslim”, whatever) is to be the victim of a piece of extraordinary intellectual vulgarity. Literally vulgar: from vulgus. It’s crowd-thought.
— Philip Pullman
kurt cobain interview (seattle, 1993)
Kurt in 1993, very lucidly, on a bunch of stuff including misanthropy, sexism, advocacy, collecting, and his fascination with anatomy. Living in South Africa, I never saw any interviews with him back then and, watching this today, it struck me that I hadn’t expected him to be this honestly unaffected and humble. This interview happened only a little over half a year before his suicide in April 1994.
lena khalaf tuffaha – running orders
They call us now.
Before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?”
They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of war time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.
on religion, compassion and conflict
Comparative religion scholar Karen Armstrong on the roots of religion and the challenge for our time.
1677 map of bohemia as a rose
A map that shows Bohemia as a stylised Hapsburg rose. The stem firmly connects the flowering Bohemian rose to the fertile soil of Vienna, the Habsburg’s political centre. The Latin text at the bottom explains:
There grew a graceful Rose in the Bohemian woods, and an armoured lion standing guard next to her. That Rose had grown out of the blood of Mars, not of Venus. […] Do not fear, lovely Rose! There comes the Austrian. […] The Rose of Bohemia, bloody for all the centuries, where more than 80 battles were waged. She has been now drawn in this form for the first time.
Read more about this strange propaganda map HERE.
ayn rand, rand paul and paul ryan walk into a bar
Lizza Littlewort, 2014. Watercolour on 100% cotton paper.
This picture was made in appreciation of that really great joke that went around recently: Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar. The barman serves them tainted alcohol because there are no regulations. They die.
fela kuti & egypt 80 – beasts of no nation
This post goes out to FIFA president Sepp Blatter and all the people aligning themselves with various national football teams in the bizarre competitive spectacle that is the FIFA World Cup.
Happening this time round in Brazil, FIFA bleeds yet another host country’s economy dry, with the willing help of its own government – systematic violence, neo-colonial parasitism. Last time it was South Africa’s turn, and the effects are still being felt here.
fuck fifa
Yup. I DO care about how voraciously the FIFA parasite infests every successive host country, and it makes me absolutely immune to the hype.
kola boof
This Ohio bookseller refuses to carry African writer Kola Boof’s novels because of nudity.
“I don’t agree that I am controversial. What I feel is that most people are not critical thinkers. The society tells them what to believe, what to think…and their knee jerk reactions are guided completely by that conditioning. They usually realize later on that what I’m saying is not controversial… when they take time and think in depth. Even if they don’t agree with me… they understand what I’m saying without all the claims of being shocked by controversy. I’m not a controversial person if you’re a critical thinker.”
Check out Kola Boof’s website, where you can also read more of this interview.
m.i.a. – double bubble trouble
Shampoo, drones and 3D printed guns…
sudden infant – girl
The brand new video from the brand new album, Wölfli’s Nightmare (2014, Voodoo Rhythm Records). Produced by the über-distinguished Roli Mosimann, this is the first release from Sudden Infant as a trio:
Joke Lanz: vocals, electronics
Christian Weber: bass
Alexandre Babel: drums
vice v – mr president
“Mr President” is the controversial first single released on Long Talk 2 Freedom. It is a work of hip-hop protest literature which deals with the failed presidency of Jacob Zuma. The work remixes, and was inspired by, Tunisian rapper El-general’s classic, “Rayes lebled”, which became the theme song of the Tunisian revolution which brought Tunisian Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali down in 2011.
Written, produced, mixed and mastered by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh aka Vice V
Recorded by Tiger.X
Speeches referenced:
T. Lekota, “Response to the State of the Nation Address”, February, 2013.
J. Malema, “They Shot us Behind the Mountain: Address on the First Anniversary of the Marikana Massacre”, August, 2013.
pj harvey – working for the man (live, 1995)
“Working For The Man” and “Goodnight”, performed live on The White Room, 1995. Hot.
القداس الالهي البيزنطي
The Byzantine Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy, sung in Arabic and Greek by the Mount Lebanon Choir.
thuli madonsela’s letter to her 16-year-old self
This letter to her 16-year-old self gives insight into Thuli Madonsela‘s life before she became South Africa’s formidable Public Protector – one of the few current SA government office bearers who retain any integrity. Read her report on the misuse of public funds at the private residence of President Jacob Zuma at Nkandla. You can tell between the lines of this letter that she had to learn early in life to be comfortable with making unpopular choices to be able to do the things she believed in.
The following is an extract from From Me to Me: Letters to my 16-and-a-half-year old self (Jacana Media, 2012), a collection of letters written by South Africans to their teenage selves.
26 April 2012
Dear Thuli
It is April 2012, 5 months before our big 5-0 birthday. I am your future. At the moment, you are 16-and-a half years old, doing grade 11, known as form four then, at Evelyn Baring High School in Swaziland, the year being 1979. You are wondering what you will be, caught between thoughts of pursuing medicine and law. Your pastor’s disapproving views on the latter are not in any way helpful. I know you are socially awkward, plagued by a nagging feeling of being unloved and ugly.
Perhaps this comes from being teased about your big head and, more recently, two of your academically inferior classmates have started taunting you, too. Having two sisters whose beauty is always noticed and praised has not helped either. Secure in your academic prowess – for which you are always praised at home and at school – you are regarded as helpful and relied on by your family, friends, teachers and your church. This makes you feel significant. You will excel, academically, throughout your life and this will bring you to where you are right now. I’m writing to tell you to relax because you are a perfect expression of God’s magnificence.
You are the mother of two wonderful children, a beautiful daughter Wenzile Una and a handsome son Mbusowabantu “Wantu” Fidel. Your fears of being unlovable were unfounded. You have been loved and supported beyond measure throughout your life. Today, you are the nation’s Public Protector – a very responsible position that helps curb excesses in the exercise of public power while enabling the people to exact justice for state wrongs. You had the privilege of playing some role in bringing about change in this country, including the drafting of the new constitution that saw Nelson Mandela become the first black President. Mama was right, education is the great leveler. I’m glad I listened to her.
You have experienced tough times and great times, been met with nurturers and detractors, but all these life lessons have been necessary to help you bloom. You have come to realize that you are perfect for your life’s purpose. You’ve always been a dreamer, an eternal optimist. Keep dreaming, for dreams have wings. But live consciously and take time to smell the roses otherwise life will pass you by, including the opportunity to appreciate the finite precious moments you will enjoy with your late partner, younger sisters and parents.
Above all, remember that love is everything and don’t forget to forgive yourself and others.
Love you unconditionally,
Thuli Nomkhosi Madonsela (Your older Self)
money money money
Money is the route of all kinds of evil.
“miners shot down” showing tonight in cape town
EVERYONE IN SOUTH AFRICA NEEDS TO SEE THIS FILM.
In August 2013, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers. What emerges is a collusion at the top, spiraling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. South Africa will never be the same again.
Read more about this documentary HERE.
fleurmach 