Over the past few years, the first fibre optic cable has been laid from the frozen north, where the Internet rules supreme, to Kenya, with links to Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8165077.stm. Last week it was formally switched on, with ceremonies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. This is good news. Africa is ready for it, as is shown by the interest in all means of communication (see the ZIFF post), as is shown by the enthusiasm in Zanzibits for both web and graphics design, and web programming. But it will take some time to get to Zanzibar, and my little saga shows the difficulties that still prevail here. Read more…
.. or how Martin (of whom more later) came to regret leaving Zanzibar. His passion is that for passion fruit (juice). Read more…
Free will comes up at various points in Straw Dogs; the main treatment is in section 11 of The Deception (pp 64-69) entitled Lord Jim’s Jump. Lord Jim is a reference to the novel by Joseph Conrad (which I have not read). The jump in question is a jump to safety from an apparently sinking ship. Jim spends the remainder of the book grappling with the implications of this jump, in which he feels he has betrayed himself and the seaman’s ethic of bravery and service. The question, of course, is “was he responsible for this action, or could he have acted otherwise?” Read more…
John Gray, a philosopher who is much talked about these days, is the anti-philosopher’s philosopher. He is like the fresh-faced young boy who sees that the unquestioned assumptions on which his elders have based their lives are a mixture of unquestioned assumptions, blind faith, self-serving beliefs, riddled with such internal contradictions and fallacies that the whole lot needs to be thrown out and a new start made. Except of course that Gray is not a fresh-faced young boy but a serious thinker, and the elders in question are the vast majority of philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, economists, religious and secular thinkers who have inhabited the human race since the golden age of the hunter gatherer. Read more…
Not a good start: sitting on Air Egypt aeroplane for 2 hours without explanation (except in Arabic and inaudible English) as to what was going on. Made up time, and they held back the connection for us; we were corralled into a holding pen, and then sent dashing off to the Dar es Salaam plane, with minutes to spare. Minutes gave way to 10s of minutes as the luggage made its way at a more leisurely pace. A gentle start to not being a European in an Anglo-European context where you’re a not-quite-fitting-in person in a radically different culture. Refreshing. Read more…
A few weeks ago (12th May, actually), I got a Skype chat from my friend Werner from Mewe : “would you be partial to an all expenses paid teaching holiday in Zanzibar from end June to mid-August?” Well, yes - what is there not to like about this idea? I spent 4 years in Ghana 4 decades ago, so the idea of going to East Africa was enticing.
It turns out that the expenses do not include beer, but apart from that it is just about doable if you get somebody to cook for you; I am looking into this, but more of that later. Read more…