Saturday, September 18, 2010

Cat-calls in Botswana

Station Cat-Calls ( Pssst, hey baby, come here beautiful and so on )

As a woman in Gaborone, Botswana you do not need to go to a style expert to tell you how good you are looking on any given day. All you have to do is walk through the main bus and taxi rank affectionately known as the “Station” and within a few minutes if you are well dressed you will know it. A group of petrol attendants or taxi drivers with time to kill on their hands while they are waiting for customers will hiss, psst or whistle to get your attention, followed by common phrases like “wuwu”, “baby”, “come here beautiful” or “can I have your number”. It is not only taxi drivers and petrol attendants who do this. Sometimes the cat-calling is done by road maintenance workers or construction workers from high up on scaffolds with their distinctive dark blue overalls and white hard hats on.

People have differing views on the Botswana cat-calling phenomenon. Some people think it is just harmless fun for the men while they go about their jobs. The men’s days can be long and boring so they need to do something exciting to get them through the day. With so many women of all kinds, shapes and sizes passing through the Station every day, the men will never lack for entertainment. Cat-calling gives them something to look forward to on days that they do not feel too excited about coming to work. Where is the harm in that?

Some of the cat-callers would even argue that they are doing a valuable service to women. They have seen women walking around with solemn faces break into beautiful, heartwarming smiles the minute they got cat-calls. It seems to brighten up the day of most of Gaborone’s women to know that, someone approves of what they are wearing and is willing to let them know. The cat-callers believe that the women might say they don’t like it but if they were to tell the truth, they would admit that on some level it makes them feel good. The men do not just cat-call anybody, they only cat-call Gaborone’s best dressed women. It is a nod of approval from the men and which woman can honestly say she does not want to get a nod of approval?

Avid opponents of cat-calling think that it is tacky and disrespectful to women. It makes it seem like women solely exist for men to look at. It treats women like pieces of meat which men have a right to judge. What gives the men the right to be the judges of who is looking good and who is not? Did Gaborone’s women ask them to judge them? Would the men like it if women judged whether they were well dressed or not on a day to day basis? Women feel that cat-calling puts unnecessary pressure on them to conform to the standards of the cat-callers. Walking through the Station feels like walking into a beauty pageant women did not sign up for and this makes some women nervous and self-conscious. There are some women who dread passing through the Station or any place like the Station.

I have endured cat-calling (or lack-thereof on days I was not well dressed) while growing up in Gaborone. I have hated it on some days and appreciated it during others. I think the men are really well meaning and just want to voice their appreciation of women and the effort they make to look good. However, I think cat-calling is the wrong way to show appreciation for women. The men could simply walk up to a woman and say, “Hi Miss, I think you look really good today. Have a nice day” without whistling, making strange sounds or making lewd gestures or comments. This would be polite, respectful and it would serve the same purpose as cat-calling.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Good critical thinking skills can improve our movies, books, art, newspapers etc

Why did Tsotsi win an Oscar - The importance of critical thinking.

A guide to how Africans can produce movies and pieces of writing that will be applauded by local and international intellectual critics

Why did the movie Tsotsi (the criminal) win an Oscar? The answer is simple. It is because the story line showed superior critical thinking. The story line was not your simple thief steals car, police investigate and thief gets caught story. That would have been boring and predictable. The story line of Tsotsi asks what would happen if a hardened Tsotsi stole a car and found a baby in the back. This forces you to stop and think hard about this scenario. The Tsotsi kills people on a daily basis; will it be easy for him to kill an adorable little baby? Will the baby soften the Tsotsi’s heart and allow him to get in touch with his lost sense of compassion or will this encounter barely matter to the criminal?

In the movie, the Tsotsi decides to take care of the baby. Even though he is terrible at it, he really tries his best. In the process we discover that the baby reminds the Tsotsi about the innocence that was robbed from the Tsotsi by a harsh life on the streets. We realize that the Tsotsi was once a sweet, pure child but the tough living conditions for black people brought about by the nasty apartheid regime forced Tsotsi to become a killing machine. He becomes deeply attached to the baby because he wishes he was still as innocent as the baby but the sad reality is that there is no way for Tsotsi to recapture his innocence. He is so far deep in a life of crime that he cannot get a fresh start like the baby, which makes Tsotsi a very sad and heart wrenching story. We realize that Tsotsi, the criminal, was an unfortunate victim of circumstance and it is painful that he cannot be helped because he is beyond help; he has killed too many people. Tsotsi is not just about a thief stealing a car. It is a story about the loss of innocence, coming of age in an unfair world like apartheid era South Africa which limited young African people’s potential and being trapped in a bad way of life with no way out. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried like a baby at the end of Tsotsi.

Any good movie or piece of writing must explore a common theme from a unique and fresh perspective like Tsotsi. There must be a compelling central theme or idea that sticks in people’s minds and lingers on long after they have finished reading the story or watching the movie. The product must show some critical analysis of the subject matter. Great writers and movie producers or artists deeply move or unsettle their readers.

How does one acquire these necessary critical thinking skills? An education in the humanities like English, Philosophy, History and Political Science can mold an individual into a critical thinker. Many people in Africa think a liberal arts education is useless. We always think its better to study law, medicine, accounting and economics in order to become successful. However a liberal arts education is very valuable because it helps individuals explore their own minds and find out what they are capable of. It forces students to look at their world from a new perspective and to try to question why things are the way they are.

You cannot make compelling adverts, movies, stories or poems if you are not a critical thinker. The works will seem aimless and intellectual critics will shun them. Nollywood produces a lot of movies, however very few of them get critical acclaim because the stories do not force you to look at things differently in any way. Most Nollywood movies just show you real life with no unique thesis. African movie makers need to develop good critical thinking skills before picking up a camera to shoot anything.

If you are past university age, its not too late to learn how to be a critical thinker. Read a lot of high quality books and form a book club to discuss the ideas presented in these books and how they gave you a new perspective on any issue. Reading Pulitzer prize winning books and other books that have achieved critical acclaim can help in developing sound critical thinking skills. Watch Oscar winning movies and try to figure out why they worn Oscars while other movies didn't. Once you can tell good quality movies from bad ones, you will be on your way to knowing how you could make good quality, thought provoking, compelling movies, books, newspaper articles and adverts.

African news, television, movies and life in general could greatly benefit from great critical thinkers.

These books below and others helped me become a better critical thinker. You have to work hard to get the results, so read and re-read.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Woman Warrior – Maxine Kingston
To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Frankenstein by Marry Shelley
Roxana by Daniel Defoe