Tuesday, March 4, 2008

More about last night

I arrived early at the talk I went to last night (mentioned in depth below). I was warned that they may run out of seating as many people would want to hear the speaker. I arrived approximately 1/2 hour early.... and along with my friend were the first people there. By 7, when the event was to start, the auditorium was only half-full, which was a good thing, because the speaker was not there.

After 20 or so minutes, the MC announced that the speaker was caught in a roadblock and would be arriving late. As soon as she stepped away from the mic, one of the students in the back stood up and called out a song at the top of his lungs, and within seconds, dozens of students joined in the song clapping and swaying. It was beautiful - again, South Africans have an AMAZING ability to harmonize. The funny thing was that only the black students sang, with a couple of exceptions. The white students either just ignored it or looked around uncomfortably.

It was a very interesting interaction, and the singing continued on and off until the speaker arrived, and then picked up again after he was announced until he started speaking.

I hear that PAC has some of the most radical and passionate followers of any of the political parties - I am now getting a glimpse of what that means.

The members of the speaker's entourage wore shirts that said: Eliminate poverty before poverty eliminates you. ((which he referenced in his talk when speaking about how poverty is a breading ground for terrorism - he said that during the struggle, when he had to rally support behind the idea of violent revolution, he just had to speak in an impoverished area.))

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