Facebook and other vices

Driving manically around the Western Cape Province, as I am at the moment, in the vain attempt to get everything ready for the hoards which are supposed to be arriving from abroad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and the hoards which I know will be pitching up at Provincial Public Viewing Areas, I get to listen to quite a bit of radio.

And on one programme, there was an interview regarding the new privacy settings on Facebook. Apparently, there is an issue. There has been something of a revolt in the Facebook community and Facebook has responded to it by upping the ante in relation to privacy settings. As I understand things, it has something to do with who can see your profile. The person who was being interviewed said that he didn’t do much Facebooking, because he was rather old fashioned in relation to friendships. He didn’t want to have such a wide circle of friends able to read everything he said to all his other friends. And that got me thinking.

When I first encountered Facebook, introduced as I was by my internet connected partner, I was appalled by it. I was appalled by the level of inanity I encountered. There were people I was connected to (in one way or another) telling me what they had for lunch; what they thought of the weather; what they thought about random issues; what they liked at that particular moment, or not; what happened to them in the lift, and so on.

There were pictures of all sorts of things one would normally avoid, unless one were to be trapped in one of those “Oh, I must show you my pictures of my trip to Venice” moments. There were groups about this and groups about that. There were causes about this and causes about that. There was an unbelievably witless thing, which I never got to the bottom of called “Farmville”. There were suggestions about who I might like to befriend, even though I had never met them before. And so it went.

I wanted out immediately. To my horror, I discovered that it was impossible to delete one’s profile. You could sort of make it dormant, but never delete it. I made it dormant and felt extremely relieved. My partner smiled wistfully and just carried on with his Facebooking and Tweeting and all the other things he does on the internet.

It didn’t take long and I was back. Doing many of the things which had so repelled me in the first instance. There was (and is), to be sure, a kind of social voyeurism, which is satisfied by it. I have discovered the block button and have blocked all the wildly Evangelical Christians and irritating racists I had somehow managed to get entangled with. If I get a friend request from someone I have never heard of, with no explanation or context, I just ignore it. I seldom – very seldom - join causes, no matter how important they might seem. I automatically delete (or is the word “unfriend”) anyone with anything to do with Farmville. And I have to say, I am a whole lot happier about my association with Facebook. I did have one extremely unpleasant encounter, with someone I was not connected to and the incident warned me that this mechanism could be less than benign. But despite it, I have continued.
But I have to wonder, is the whole thing just simply narcissistic? I have a whole lot of friends who are not on Facebook, and when I think about it, they are my closest friends. Most of them are not on Facebook because they either don’t have the computer literacy, or because they have taken a deliberate decision not to be. And we service each other as we always have done. We occasionally call each other to catch up on news. Perhaps we email each other. We see each other for a meal. We go to each other’s houses and talk to each other.

And all the bits which happen between encounters are filtered. They are either ignored, or they are selected for updating. But they are seldom paraded in a completely unessential fashion. Let me give an instance in my own Facebook behaviour, which is perhaps questionable.

I often go onto Facebook and read about everyone else’s day. Then I think, “Well, what can I say?” Now my day, believe me, is seldom anything interesting enough to publish. “I sat in a meeting for most of the day, listening to people jabber on about boring things”. There is nothing interesting or even mildly curious about that. Why would you tell anyone about it?

So then I think, well why not put what I am listening to at the moment. So I put “is listening to … (some fairly obscure 20th century composer)’s … (equally obscure piece in a foreign language)…”. And I often get responses to that. By the one or two or three people on my list who either have actually heard that piece, or who have heard it and liked it and are glad that there is another person in the universe who likes it as well.

So why do it do it? Why do I tell EVERYONE connected to me what piece of music I am listening to? Isn’t that as bad as telling everyone my dream last night? Or the menu I am planning for my next dinner party, to which they are not invited?

Well, I don’t know, fully. I think there is an element of conceit in it. And curiosity – exploring the off-chance that there are others in the universe with a similar mien. I also think there is an element of neighbourliness. I suppose it all depends, psychologically, which element is dominant in one’s personality.

Protecting God

In the wake of a rather strange Facebook campaign – “Everyone draw the Prophet Mohammed”, our very own Zapiro (aka Jonathan Shapiro) published a cartoon in the Mail and Guardian yesterday, of the Prophet reclining on a psychiatrist’s couch, bemoaning the fact that other prophets had followers with a sense of humour.

The outage has been instantaneous, from a wide range of people (within a fairly narrow band, of course). Inevitably from Muslims – who say it is wrong to draw the Prophet at all and from a particular type of Christian, who, while not wanting to protect the Prophet Mohammed from anything in particular, imagines the same kind of thing with Jesus on the couch – and doesn’t like the feeling. And from people who want to protect religion in general from anything and everyone.

Now I will tell you why, if I were a famous cartoonist, I wouldn’t draw a picture of the Prophet Mohammed doing anything at all. It is because I would be scared shitless of the result it could induce from some of his followers! Firstly, there would be offence. That is because it is apparently an offensive thing to draw the Prophet. I can’t imagine why, myself, but religion has seldom claimed to be rational. But that would not be the end of it. There would be fatwas announced (and there probably will be - on Zapiro’s head). There would be threats of one kind or another. There would be venom and hatred. There would be real, present and extreme danger. So, frankly, laudable as freedom of expression is – I would be happy just not expressing anything here.

Does that make me a coward? No, I don’t think so. You pick your battles in life, and this, sure as nuts, isn’t one of them which I would be tempted to pick. I heard the another really good South African cartoonist, Jeremy Nell, on the radio yesterday making a valid point and which was niggling at the back of my head when I first heard about this Facebook campaign. He was saying that, in his estimation, the whole campaign was based on completely the wrong principle. He said, as a cartoonist, he would draw whatever he wanted to draw – but this campaign was actually based on hate – and he would therefore have nothing to do with it. Because, lets be honest here, a glance at the page reveals a medium for every Muslim-hating person on the planet to vent their spleen – despite the fact that it proclaims itself as “not a hate speech” page.

Zapiro is not unfamiliar with deep and sometimes violent reaction to his work, though. He doesn’t mind who he goes for – and like the court jester of old – he often speaks the truth. He is Jewish, but that hasn’t stopped him lambasting Jews in the modern State of Israel, where for many, as far as I can see, the land itself seems to have replaced their concept of God. He has attacked Apartheid and he has attacked the ANC and other liberation movements alike. And the reactions have been similarly hysterical. He is a really good cartoonist.

But is he a sensible one? We are less than 20 days, as I write, away from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which is going to be held in South Africa. This event is already a target for mad people and extremists the world over. Already there has been a threat against the Danish and French teams (both of whom are staying in Knysna, by the way), because a Danish cartoonist drew the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb as a turban, and the French ban on the Burka. Now we have a South African cartoonist added to the mix, to refine the target. I think it was a naïve and silly thing to do.

And not because I think religions of all kinds with immature, extreme followers should be protected – but because I think that discretion is by far the better part of valour. And besides freedom of speech and all that, God is not protected by any of this. That is the really crazy part about it all. What a bizarre idea it is, that God or any of the Prophets of any religion should need us to protect them?

Living with Ritalin

Ritalin has a very bad name. In most parents, the very word conjures up images of robotic children, chemically manipulated into silence. I have to say, that was my initial prejudice.

It was indeed a prejudice, because I knew virtually nothing about the drug. When confronted with the possibility of using it on one of my children, my immediate reaction to it was, "I am not going to drug my child". But of course, that was a lie, and it was easily exposed. I drug my child when he has a cold. I drug my child when he has an infection of one sort or another. I drug my child when he has a temperature. And I do it without any hesitation. I have even considered (believe me!) drugging him when he didn't need it, but I have restrained myself. I am happy to get him inoculated with anything that might be around. Flu, Measles, mumps and the rest of it. I believe in drugs!

And besides that, I could never be accused to being drug-free myself! I am, a complete sissy with illness. I spurn "natural" remedies. I have tried them - I really have. But besides the dent in my pocket, I have noticed very little other effect. So yes, I am prepared to accept that if I fed him vast quantities of fish oil, there may have some positive result - but I doubt it. I really doubt it.

Joshua, our youngest son, was kept in the orphanage for three months too long. There were some worries about the size of his head and other things - but the end result was that when we got him, he was a child whose lights had almost gone off. He didn't cry. He didn't complain about anything. He just sat and watched, with large, staring eyes. It was so bad that our childminder called her sister and said to her that she really didn't know what we had brought home. Joshua seemed like a seriously damaged child.

And three weeks later, this child woke up. My God did he wake up! He just wouldn't stop. And yes, he was delightful and charming as well, but as he grew and as he went to school, these became his stand-out characteristics: He was over-busy. He seemed never to be able to complete a task. He became worryingly devious and dishonest. The name "Joshua" would be yelled, shouted, screamed 150 times a day, as you would tell him not to do this and not to do that. We initially put it down to an exploring nature.

But, at the same time, his record at school was also not too good. He fought with others. He interfered with other's work. He got himself and those around him into trouble. His lack of concentration meant that his work was not good, though his intelligence was obvious.

We met with his Occupational Therapist and she seemed to me to be going round the houses on the issue of drugs. Eventually I asked her straight out, making it clear that I was not averse to considering them. She said yes. She thought he could be an ideal candidate. And so we started to explore further.

A friend of mine, a long time teacher, told me what it was like to teach ADD and ADHD learners. She said, if she were teaching something at the front of the class, she would immediately be able to recognise a child with attention deficit. If there was a sprinkler outside on the lawn, every flash of light would get his or her attention. If there was an ant on the floor, then that would. If there was a ceiling fan going round - and so on.

The doctor we consulted described it to us in terms of receptors in the brain. He held out his fingers separating them as wide as he could from each other and with the forefinger on his other hand he pointed to the tips. These were the receptors and past them whooshes a vast amount of information. The job of the receptors is to distinguish that information which is necessary to the present task from that which is not - and to discard that which is unnecessary. The ADD or ADHD child cannot do that.

The drug Ritalin has been found to do that task. It usually works, apparently. We were told that if we did not notice an immediate and positive change in the child, then it was the wrong drug for him. You play around with it until you find the correct dosage and then the child will be on it for as long as it is useful. It isn't habit forming and can be stopped at any time.

But there are, usually and unfortunately some significant side-effects. Sleeplessness is one. Joshua now goes to sleep around 11 pm. This stretches one's patience a good three hours past reasonable endurance levels.

And eating. He has dropped weight fairly dramatically. He eats virtually nothing during the day and with no real commitment during the other meals in the morning and at night. This represents a fairly dramatic change in behaviour for him.

But he has also become quieter, more obedient - in every possible way. Far less dishonest and deceitful. Far less scheming. More careful in everything and less damaging and wilfully destructive. But he now has this curious, uncharacteristic quietness about him. If you tell him to hold your hand - that is what he does.

At the same time, we have noticed a high rise in what is sometimes inappropriate emotionality. He will cry over the simplest thing. And it is real tears that flow.

His interactions and play with his brother has been far less fractious. He seems to remember more and retain more and is generally more polite and more concerned about the wellbeing of the other.

But, for me there is something creepy about it all. I cannot stop thinking about Stepford Wives - that group of women who were chemically dealt with, so that all possible irritating feminist rebellion is brought to a halt. Is that what we are doing? Are we chemically manipulating his brain, to suit ourselves? Or to benefit him? For the present, it seems to be doing both.

Mother and Child

Rodrigo Garcia, the director of this film, is an undisputed genius at crafting the unexpected. There is no way in which one could have second-guessed this complex narrative of a mother and daughter, separated at birth, who both struggle with the damage done to each of them. It is a narrative of loss. It unfolds slowly, uncompromisingly, deftly. The viewer gets drawn into the complex disentanglement of three separate sets of lives, all of whom are linked to each other.

The film opens with with two 14-year-olds kissing. The scene fades into an unplanned pregnancy - leads to a birth - a glance at the child by her mother before it is taken away for immediate adoption.

The rest of the action takes place 37 years later, when the audience starts on a journey of discovery which has as its basis the terrible effect of this event on the two women. Annette Bening's Karen, the mother, lives a sterile life. She hasn’t married and cares for her ailing mother (Eileen Ryan). There is a wall of silence between these two women. They are unable to communicate with each other. They are unable and emotionally ill-equipped to deal with each other’s pain. Karen's mother relates better to her home helf than she does to her daughter. In turn, Karen’s interaction with others is equally awkward and lacking in emotion. She is damaged and one learns that the source of the damage is the child she was forced to give up by her mother and whom she writes to regularly, imagines, but makes no effort to seek out.

Naomi Watts' Elizabeth has overlaid her pain with high quality legal work. She is unable to relate emotionally to men and uses them mercilessly through risky and emotionless sex. She is fiercely independent but she is something of a drifter. But she returns, several times, in her roaming to the town in which she was born.

A third storyline follows another unwanted pregnancy and an adoption process. Kerry Washington's Lucy in unable to have children with her husband (David Ramsey) and they seek a child through a Catholic adoption agency, to meet a young prospective mother who, though willing to give up the baby, is extremely demanding in terms of what kind of family she wants for her baby. The interplay of power and helplessness in this narrative is almost frightening. On the one hand there is the need of Lucy, both to satisfy the needs of their marriage, and the apparent (somewhat ruthless) needs of the expectant mother, to dominate by means of the trump which which she holds over them.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, as well as her birth-mother, Karen, have their own issues of power. Neither has sought the other out, even though, for both, this could have meant resolution. When they eventually do, neither of them can claim any victory.

A gentle Jimmy Smits, is attracted to Karen but her response to him is almost violent rejection. When her mother dies, she is able to give in to his attention and give herself up to it. There is an interesting sub-text regarding God, and religion throughout the piece. It is a Catholic Adoption Agency which keeps the records of the adoptions. The nun who forms the centrepiece of connection is kind and gentle and humane. But it is it also the same agency which is the cause of botching critical connections between the players. The Jimmy Smits character admits to not believing in God, but his over-religious daughter describes him as the “kindest man alive”.

Lucy is interrogated ruthlessly by the prospective birth-mother on her religious beliefs. When she admits to her that she is an atheist, she believes that she has lost all hope of winning the birth-mother over. Only shortly afterwards to discover that the mother is convinced by her honesty.

Elizabeth gets sexually involved with her boss, played by Samuel L. Jackson, at a Los Angeles law firm. The relationship is curiously ambivalent and nothing one might expect. There is an age difference between the two of them, which is simply there – never noted or even acknowledged by anyone. But it is there – at the height of him achieving orgasm – Elizabeth calls him an “old man”. He is black, she is white. This fairly significant issue is never mentioned by anyone. When there is a need for introduction, she introduces him to others as “her father” – without further comment. Later on, the issue becomes extremely important in her life – but again, utterly refreshingly, it is never mentioned.

The three narratives eventually collide. Not in an easy way and not in a way where there is necessarily any resolution. The characters remain their own individual selves. The connection is real, but circumstantial. It does not control any of them, but it is the drum-beat at the centre of their being.

What is so magnificent about this movie is that it is always understated. It tries to resolve nothing artificially. At the end, there is a peace. But it is a heart-wrenching, gut-aching peace of real life. It is the peace of a complex set of lives. It is the peace we go about making for ourselves – or not.

It is a magnificent piece of cinema. Utterly magnificent.

The Third Reich and the 2010 FIFA World Cup

The other day, I was asked to do a presentation to the Western Cape Provincial Museum’s services, on how we have achieved legacy from the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It was in Stellenbosch. I battled to find the venue, which was part of the Stellenbosch Museum. And the reason I battled to find it, I discovered later, was that the sign had fallen down, and no-one had bothered to put it up again!

I thought I was pretty much on time – but discovered that the speaker before me was still in full flight, giving a talk on the way in which the Nazi’s had tried to use the 1936 Olympics to benefit Hitler and the Reich. It was sobering stuff indeed!

The presenter was illustrating her talk with various athletes, who had been sidelined or excluded, either because they were not Aryan enough, or because they were too dark. She spoke of a contestant from the United States, Jesse Owens, who was (what would now be called) African-American. He won four gold medals and became a nightmare for the Nazis, because he was besieged by autograph hunters and was cheered every time he entered the stadium. Rather than acknowledge him, as he had done for all other athletes, Hitler chose to leave the stadium early.

She told the story of Jewish athletes who were excluded from participation. She spoke of one young Jewish athlete, Helene Mayer, who was used for publicity (unbeknown to her) and because of extreme pressure from the USA on the Reich to include Jewish athletes in the German team. She was used as a kind of window-dressing. She was chosen, because she was “half Aryan” – and generally had physical features which the Nazis found vaguely acceptable. And so pleased was she to have been included in the German team, that, like everyone else, there she was lifting her arm in the Nazi salute.

The presenter spoke of how Berlin was “sanitized” before the games. How vagrants, the indigent, street people, the poor – were all gathered together and moved out of Berlin. What was presented to the world was life under the Reich as being something very close to paradise.

I could not help looking for parallels with what it is we are doing here. Every so often, one hears of plans to take street-people beggars and street-children elsewhere, so that the visitors from elsewhere will not be unduly bothered by them. I do not know of any actual plans to do that, I have to say. But the rumours persist.

And so, at the last Technical Steering Committee for the Province, I made the following suggestion: I said, in the light of the kind of Constitution we enjoy, and the kind of rights every citizen in this country holds under it, I would propose that we enable this category of citizen - the street-people, the homeless, the street-children - with a chance to “Touch the World Cup”. Because, it will be things like that – tokenistic though they may be, which will distinguish us, in the end from the kind of event which was held in 1936.

There is, at this moment, a “tour” beginning of the actual World Cup. It is made, I hear, of 18 carat gold. It has its own security crew. It travels the world under high security and individuals are allowed to be photographed next to it. It will be in Cape Town in a few days time. And the poor will love it and be pleased to be photographed next to it. It is Sepp Blatter’s “Let them eat cake!”

I want just one occasion, when they are not used for any other purpose, other than for them to be recognised as the people that they are. Just one occasion, amidst the hype and the money and the glitz and the show. And I want the Ambassadors of the participating countries to be there when they are.