Title: Re: [Futurework] (no subject)
Ed,
 
Your first paragraph captures exactly what I was referring to, in my earlier post, when I stated "I was raised in poverty and knew about hunger and class marginalization as a child and bear that psychological imprint as an adult."  These are the "hidden injuries of class" referred to in an older study, and they are intergenerational and part of the emotional histories of families, regardless of material circumstance.  Of course, they do get mediated differently by different individuals.  On this list, I can see where it is being mediated in the social interests many of us have.  What can be more fundamental to working class people than their dependency upon income - or the fear of its absence.  It goes beyond Marx's epistemology of work as human essence, although I think both Marx and Freud may have been onto something in stating the importance of work (including artwork/thinkwork/ etc...) to human happiness.  I was attracted to this list because of the contextual tighter coupling of schooling with work, narrowly defined, in our society and the way it is shaping the curriculum in schools. 
 
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 8:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] (no subject)

Thomas, I sometimes feel that poverty is a state of mind as much as a reality.  I'm not poor now, but when I was a child my family was very poor.  The feeling of being poor is still there in the background.  It has alway been a little inhibitory - like I can't do or expect something because that's for rich people, and beyond my class.
 
A peculiarity is that I've always had trouble with toast.  When I was a little kid just starting school the teacher would sometimes ask what we had for breakfast.  The rich kids, or the kids who I thought were rich, would always say they had toast.  I never had toast.  That was for the rich kids.
 
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 2:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] (no subject)

Thomas:

After just writing my sardonic piece on my poor childhood, I am shamed at realizing how far I am from true poverty and I apologize to the Universe and to you who read this for my arrogance.

Thanks for sharing Harry,

Thomas Lunde

----------
From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "\"Futurework\" <"<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Futurework] (no subject)
Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2003, 3:37 PM


Hi!

Here is another letter from Zimbabwe.

Looks bad there.

Should we get ready to invade before the Fedayeen get too powerful?

Naaaaaaaa!

We’ll pass a strong resolution at the UN.

After all, we have Christmas to enjoy and Africa is none of our business.

Incidentally, a naartjie is a tangerine.

Harry

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Irrigating nothing

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a diabolical week for  Zimbabwe.  The  Abuja  decision  to

renew our suspension from the Commonwealth  caused  a  tidal  wave  of

recriminatory statements, propaganda and threats.

First  President  Mugabe  pulled  Zimbabwe  out  of  the  Commonwealth

altogether and then he, his wife and two dozen officials went to a  UN

Information Summit in Geneva. President Mugabe used this  world  forum

to publicly slate his critics saying that the email and internet  were

being used to destroy Zimbabwe and recolonise the Third World.

Meanwhile back at home Zanu PF turned up the temperature.  First  they

pushed through Parliament a ratification of the decision to leave  the

Commonwealth. Then a Zanu PF caucus  meeting  resolved  to  expel  the

foreign diplomats of Britain, Canada, Australia and New  Zealand  from

Zimbabwe. Finally, having used the fear factor to the limits,  Foreign

Minister Stan Mudenge  announced  that  the  diplomats  would  not  be

expelled "at this time."

Sitting on the edges of our seats and praying for  sanity,  wisdom  or

just plain  common  sense,  these  are  extremely  worrying  days  for

Zimbabwe. The consequences of statements and decisions made  in  anger

and to try and soothe hurt pride, are almost too awful to  contemplate

and describe. And, through it all, the lives of ordinary  Zimbabweans,

just plummet ever downwards.

One night this week the usually pitch black view from  my  window  was

disturbed by a brilliant but un-natural spotlight. The light came from

the direction of a nearby cemetery and I didn't stay  to  inspect  it,

rapidly closing the curtains and praying that the light  was  in  fact

coming from further away.

Goose bumps covered my arms as I thought about the latest horror story

in Zimbabwe. At night grave robbers are descending on  cemeteries  and

digging up newly filled graves. They  are  removing  the  corpses  and

taking the empty coffins for resale. I don't know  if  this  appalling

practice is being conducted by money making entrepreneurs or  just  by

desperate people trying to get enough money to stay alive.

With unemployment now  at  well  over  70%  in  Zimbabwe,  people  are

resorting to desperate means in order to  feed  themselves  and  their

families and stay alive. Zimbabwe has now entered the  fourth  growing

season  in  a  row  without  any  sort  of  decent  agriculture  being

practiced. Every half hour, 72 times a day, our state radio churns out

the latest  propaganda  jingle  telling  us  that  "Our  Land  is  our

prosperity".

The government have seized 11 million hectares of  prime  agricultural

land and yet, for the fourth year in a row,  half  of  our  population

needs world food aid and people are starving and  digging  up  coffins

for re-sale. The majority of the seized farms have not been  ploughed,

the resettled people have no seed, no chemicals, no fertilizer and  no

money with which to buy the inputs they need to grow food.

A recent overseas visitor to my home walked around my small garden and

said it felt like looking at something from World War  Two.  In  every

flower bed, between daisies and lilies, there are vegetables:  onions,

carrots, cabbages, beetrots and spinach. Along one wall, standing tall

and about to blossom are sunflowers which I am  growing  in  order  to

supplement the feed I give to my half a dozen chickens.

In flower pots are chillies, strawberries and climbing beans.  Up  and

down my driveway my six laying hens patrol and scratch, crop the lawn,

dig out worms and beetles, feast on flying ants and eat weeds.

From my kitchen pelmets hang great heavy strings of home grown  onions

cropped from one small bed in the corner of the garden. In  my  pantry

cupboard are two dozen jars of home-made  marmalade,  jelly,  jam  and

chutney made from the jealously guarded single naartjie  and  paw  paw

trees in my back garden. In the fridge is home-made butter and in  the

deep freeze home grown chickens.

You have to be extremely hard working in order to survive in  Zimbabwe

these days but mostly, you have to have access to  a  small  piece  of

land and learn to become very inventive. This is the ironical  tragedy

of Zimbabwe's so called agricultural revolution.

With so much land having apparently been given to the people, why  the

hell are we all starving? Why are people digging coffins out of  newly

filled graves? Why are young boys sitting in filthy rags on pavements,

starving and begging? Why are people living in cardboard boxes in shop

doorways? Why are families of four or six  living  in  one  room  with

neither toilet or kitchen and without even a window in which to put  a

flower pot and grow one strawberry or tomato plant ?

The biggest tragedy of all is that we are wasting the  fourth  growing

season in a row. In Marondera we have already had  8  inches  of  rain

this season and yet it is irrigating nothing. It is  tragically  clear

for  anyone  who  cares  to  see,  that  this  supposed   agricultural

revolution has turned Zimbabwe into  a  nation  of  beggars,  thieves,

racketeers and grave robbers. These are the  realities  of  our  daily

lives here and as we struggle to cope with them it is hard to look  at

the bigger picture and to concentrate on caucus  meetings,  diplomatic

decisions and UN Summits.

Until next week, with love, cathy.

Copyright      cathy      buckle       13th       December       2003.

http://africantears.netfirms.com

My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond  Tears"

are now available outside Africa from:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  ;

www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ;  in  Australia  and  New

Zealand:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  ;  Africa:  www.kalahari.net

www.exclusivebooks.com


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