informage

We are so conditioned (rightly) to shun pyramid schemes, that it's easy to forget we're all part of the biggest pyramid of all:

This week I fly from Cape Town back to the UK. As always, nothing is permanent, but it's a one-way ticket... next time I'm here I'll be visiting. I've been needing to snap myself out of a funk for sometime now, and a transcontinental shift might just do the trick. (I know, I know, it's really about me not where I am but it's worth a try and anyway it'll be great to spend unbounded time with family and old friends again).

It's appropriate in the week I leave this nation that has been my adopted home for the last five and a half years to point to a couple of good S'African blogs. Firstly Ian's Neverness has been subscribed in my newsreader for a while. He's a cool Capetonian who I unfortunately never engineered to meet, but I've enjoyed reading his writing on politics, free and open source software, Africanism and green stuff.

Ian posted a link to a blog called Red Star Coven, written by Walton - a S'African in Scotland. His latest post "I hate Afro-optimism" strikes a chord with me, partly because I myself have at times fallen into the trap of blind Afro-optimism in reaction to the obnoxious and racist voice of whiney pessimism that emanates from privileged whites here.

Ian's response is intelligent and impassioned, musing on the parallax of perception* between positivity and negativity, pessimism and optimism, that Walton's critique can be inverted into a positive appraisal by simple fact reversal. I spend a lot of time thinking in just this way. Great post Ian, thanks.

Having said that, I find myself tending towards Walton's perspective. I'm extremely impressed with what I've read of his blog thus far and will be reading it regularly.

* I've evidently been reading too much Zizek but to my credit I used to be in a band called Parallax, and we chose that name because like Zizek we regarded it as word with a significant and underused denotation - that where you stand shapes your point of view.

This superb cartoon says everything I've been wanting to say about this particular trend: