Slavery,Lebanese, Palestinians, Israelis, and all other my pain is bigger than yours crap.

Following a conversation, I just had earlier with a friend about the timing of the "end of slavery" in South Africa. Naturally, for me slavery didn't end until April 28, 1990. My friend/colleague didn't agree, of course. Why should he? To his credit he didn't try too hard to argue my ill-articulated point, except to say that, one can experience all the things brought to you courtesy of Apartheid without being a slave. True, but when it is legally mandated for you to be treated that inhumanely, it makes a huge difference, IMHO. I have never understood the "my pain is/was bigger than yours" argument. It doesn't make sense to me: People are killed and degraded, or they are not. WTF, It's not relative, surely? Now, you can compute numbers dead, but you can't assign numbers to degree of degradation of those affected. Nobody ever surveys the dehumanized and degraded, "so, on a scale of 1-10 how fucking dehumanizing and/or degrading was your experience?"

"Oh, yeah, mine was a positive 3 or maybe 4." "And mine, definitely an 8 or 9." Please.


Anyway, and then, looking for alternative takes on the currrent Lebanese/Israeli situation I came across this. I had little consciousness of who Chris Hedges is/was but, my god, was I struck by what he said for reasons related to the above:

"... a long process of severe repression in Gaza and the West Bank, a kind of Africanization of the Palestinian people, reducing them to subsistence level. Gaza has become virtually a giant walled prison for 1.1 million Palestinians,and that kind of abuse...."

I repeat, "a kind of Africanization of the Palestinians" with the words, "severe repression," "abuse," "giant walled prison," and "oppressor" also in the near vicinity. Oh my god. I guess, he couldn't exactly say, the pogromification or Jewification of Palestinians. Could he say, the Armenification of Palestinians? I am struck that he said the Africanization... I have never heard/seen that before. Never. Given, language catches on, I don't know how to feel about it. Severe sadness, relief, or both? and for whom? Palestine? Africa? Both? It's bloody depressing.


Here's the full quote, you can read the entire interview, which is interesting for different reasons here from
Democracy Now: Hezbollah, the United States and the Context Behind Israel's Offensive on Lebanon

"

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, I certainly did not mean to imply in any way that, you know, there we should ascribe equal amounts of moral blame to each side. Israel is clearly to blame here, both in terms of what is happening in Gaza and what is now happening in Lebanon. On the other hand, this has been a long process of severe repression in Gaza and the West Bank, a kind of Africanization of the Palestinian people, reducing them to subsistence level. Gaza has become virtually a giant walled prison for 1.1 million Palestinians, and that kind of abuse, that kind of repression, in the absence of international condemnation and in the absence of any attempt on the part of the United States to intervene and create a more humane situation for the Palestinian, breeds extremism. It breeds an extremist response. And these groups attempt to give back to the oppressor, albeit on a much smaller scale, what the oppressor has been meting out to them for years and years and years."

School program helps South Africa's most vulnerable

This from CNN on South Africa's most vulnerable kids, especially girls of course..... story by By Alphonso Van Marsh.

Just a reminder of things I have to do with my life.

JEPPE'S REEF, South Africa (CNN) -- The janitors at a rural secondary school in the eastern South African town of Jeppe's Reef are letting their curiosity get the best of them.

Lured by the sounds of teenagers energetically repeating metric conversions, the broom-wielding older ladies peek into two classrooms that are supposed to be empty.

It's the winter school holidays on this side of the equator. While most school kids in this desperately impoverished area are out playing, dozens of teenagers choose to sit in brick classrooms. They're happy to take part in an after-hours "Accessible Schools" program, learning fractions, measuring distances -- and taking in life lessons.

"I like these classes because they are about more than just math. I'm learning life skills, about the dangers of having sex when you're too young. I'm learning a lot in these classes that I'm not getting in regular school," says Sindi Tabela, a 16-year-old orphan.

Sindi is the kind of child that the Accessible Schools program wants to help the most. Her mother died of an undisclosed illness in February. Now the head of the house, Sindi juggles raising her 10-year-old and 6-year-old sisters, going to school, finding food and fighting off unwanted advances from men who know the girls are alone.

"Sindi is at risk from rape. She is at great risk of being exploited by other people in [her] community by being asked to do child labor to earn money," says Pat Sullivan, a consultant with Reducing Exploitive Child Labour in Southern Africa (RECLISA), the group administering the program in southern Africa.

Child-rights advocates also say children like Sindi are at risk of dropping out of school due to pressures to earn money to put food on the table. The extracurricular classes are usually held on weekends, where the free lunch served is the only meal many of these children will eat that day.

Sullivan says Accessible Schools encourages at-risk kids to stay in school by giving them social and educational support, as well as teaching them about the dangers of child labor.

Sullivan says there have been accounts of South African children working 12-hour days as farm laborers or domestics, or being trafficked into prostitution. According to RECLISA, almost a third of children in sub-Saharan Africa are earning instead of learning.

'Getting worse for children'
Jeppe's Reef is in South Africa's Mpumalanga district, home to sugar cane fields, orange groves and large-scale farms. It is an agricultural magnet for laborers from the rest of South Africa, as well as neighboring Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

But it is estimated that more than half the adults in Mpumalanga are unemployed. HIV/AIDS transmission rates here are among the highest in the country. When parents abandon children in search of work, or die from HIV/AIDS, children are more susceptible to exploitation.

"In the context of HIV/AIDS, things are possibly -- and probably -- getting worse for children," says Dawie Bosch, a South African child-rights advocate. "That will translate into higher levels of child labor."

The $9 million Accessible Schools program is the result of a partnership between the U.S. Department of Labor, South African authorities, the American Institutes of Research, RECLISA and local NGO Thembalethu Home Based Care.

The goal, Sullivan says, is to provide at-risk children better access to quality education and basic resources like food and school uniforms. Thembalethu care workers help at-risk children secure government grants, health care and other support services.

So instead of being ostracized for being poor or parentless, children like Sindi are surrounded by others who understand what she's going through.

Sullivan, a British national who has lived in South Africa more than 30 years, says the program has re-enrolled 60 school dropouts since January. The program hopes to reintroduce 400 children into South African classrooms, and is being replicated elsewhere in southern Africa.

Setting an example
After class, Sindi allows me to visit her at home: a burned-out, one-room concrete hull of a house with a boarded-up window, leaky roof, and no heat, electricity or running water. Almost everything inside, from food to school uniforms on hangers, are donations.

Sindi starts a fire to boil porridge for dinner while her sisters fetch wood and fresh water. It's porridge almost every day for the Tabelas -- that is, when they can afford to eat. But Sindi says she won't quit classes or date an older man for money -- she wants to set an example for her little sisters.

"I realize I'm still a child, but I don't see this as a hard job," Sindi says. "It's just a part of life."

Despite her challenges, Sindi says, with the support of the Accessible Schools program, she's determined to finish secondary school. She says she eventually wants to be a counselor to other at-risk kids.

The Journal's staff writers think the Editorials blow

This from the New York Observer.

Ha, there are people capable of independent thought at the Journal. Who'd have thunk it?