power to women.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7072818.stm
I came across this article in the BBC news, which says that South Africa has one of the highest rape statistics in the world. This is not new news, I have been reminded of it quite a lot here, from dance shows to lectures to student orientation.
In my critical psychology class, we discussed the idea of male violence and Rape in counties like South Africa. South Africa is so distraught, with such a huge disparity between rich and poor, men and women. Men are constructed to be tough, vicious leaders.
The unemployment rates for women are so much higher than male unemployment, giving men an enormous amount of economic power over women.
South Africa needs to not only work on the deconstructing the racial hierarchies left over from quite a long history of it, but needs to work on the disparity of men and women and male sexual and economic power over women to end this horrific problem that has not been given nearly enough attention.
rabinowitz, cohen, goldstein, cohen.
Familiar names crowded the Jewish Museum of Cape Town, Cohen, Rabinowitz etc etc, they really bring me back home to Jewton, MA. Anyways, previous to my visit to the Jewish museum was quite informative. I knew about the large Jewish population, mostly in JoBerg, but I had not realised how long the Jewish people have been in South Africa, since the 1800s! Got some great fun facts, like the founders of De Beers diamond company are Jewish (not such a great reputation…hmmm)
In the next building is the Holocaust memorial and museum. It was also quite informative, but a little bit dry. I say this after having visited the museums in Washington, D.C. and in Israel, which were two of the most emotion provoking experiences of history that I have ever had. The one in South Africa was informative, especially putting the Holocaust into a South African context, which I appreciated and did not know a lot about.
But there is something about the two museums in Washington and Israel that have the real artefacts, the piles of shoes and spectacles, that make genocide real, and this museum had many photographs and no real artefacts, which made it more like a living text book than a real piece of history.
Another difference that I noticed is that in the Israeli Holocaust museum, every exhibit refers to the Jewish people as “us.” It makes it more real and more personal, but in South Africa, there are just too many types of people to say that, the Jews are “they” at the holocaust museum, making the whole experience a little bit less personal.
Putting the Holocaust in the context of South Africa and apartheid that occurred during this lifetime is discouraging. Not only did the Nationalist government side with Hitler, and denied many Jews the freedom to live in South Africa, but this blatant killing and torture, human rights offences occurred in this country in my lifetime and is still occurring everywhere. The words “torture,” “mass killing,” “inferior race,” “ghettos,” come up too many times to count in this museum and in this country everywhere. I just need to keep remembering the words “freedom fighter,” “liberation,” “survivor,” also do come up, giving hope in people.
news….zim and health minister…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7010372.stm-zim refugees
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7008506.stm-
If there is an entire community of people who try to eat a giraffe for its meat- do not take the giraffe away to save the giraffe, rather maybe someone should look at the reason why they need to eat the giraffe and do something about it….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6983675.stm
“The “Dr Beetroot” nickname appeared after Dr Tshabalala-Msimang began recommending olive oil, lemon, beetroot and the African potato as elements of a healthy diet that could treat the symptoms associated with Aids. “
dance empowerment.
Friday night, after a full day of school, volunteering, rain and dinner, we walked over to the Baxter theatre to see the Cape Town Dance Festival. The festival was advertised as a dance show full of different types of dance from modern to ballet to meringue. The show was not just a dance recital or even just a dance show, it was a political, social commentary that transcended “art for art’s sake.”
The show began with a video screen of a news broadcast, spitting out statistics of rape and domestic violence in South Africa, with are very high statistics. A very intense and moving modern dance followed. It was effective in sending a message because it was not too explicit or graphically about rape, but the choreography and attitude of the dancers made their point very clear.
Another dance that was very powerful was about Long St., which is the street in Cape Town comparable to Adams Morgan of Washington D.C., or Boylston St. in Boston, completely lined with bars and young people at night. The dance was accompanied with a speaker, who told a story about girls on Long St, which involved, fun and dancing, but also violence and drugs. Not only did the dancers and speaker make some other important points about the problems and dangers of South Africa, but the dancers were almost inhuman. The way they moved their bodies with such precision and synchrony was hectic, as a South African might put it.
Along with the pieces with messages, there were also dances purely for fun and show: including a group of curvy women with huge smiles dancing a meringue type dance, and a group of young women and men in all black dancing a slinky routine to an Edith Piaf song.
Overall, I thought the show was very empowering to women. News casters reading off statistics to not show the true nature of the dangers that women face in Cape Town. Dance is a way for women not only to be empowered, but to use art to comment on and inform others of the terrible social situations that will not get into some people’s minds in other ways but to see it through art.
