Becca not sure she's ever experienced as much in one week

Monday through Friday, I attended the 7th Annual Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI2016). Here I was “rappoteuring”—taking notes on the various sessions. There were five sessions; Access to Remedy: Litigation and Mining, Gender and Extractives, Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining, Business and Human Rights, and Mining and Taxation. I noticed there were basically three trains of thought motivating the people at the conference (1) radical politicians with no faith in the government calling for a revolution; (2) lawyers who were intent on using established mechanisms of law to effect permanent change in public policy and; (3) people who felt that sociopolitical pressure from civil society was necessary for legal decisions that would change public policy to occur. I have always understood the distribution and inheritance of natural resources to be the foundation of inequality and so I have always believed that any industry that exploits land to the point where it is unusable is not only environmentally destructive, but and egregious violator of human rights. I still believe this but a lot of the dialogues at AMI made me look more carefully at my theory. I started to realize that South Africa’s biggest industry, mining, despite its tax evasion, abundance of illicit financial flows, exploitation of workers, dismissal of sexual violence in the workplace, etc. is still an industry that employs some of the most poor and marginalized people in the country. Immediately abolishing mining would be devastating for this population. While I understand the need to continue mining, what I could not understand was why, in the Gender and Mining seminar the discussion completely revolved around empowering women to work in the mines. As I was rappoteuring and getting more and more frustrated, a women finally said what I was having trouble articulating. “Why are we talking about this? Just because women are working in mines, doesn’t mean they’re good. We have an entire demographic of underserved underemployed people. Why aren’t we trying to build their capacity to innovate in the green energy sector? Why aren’t we empowering them to become politicians so that they can better represent those women who are already there? Africa was built on the backs of women and now women are going to build Africa”. I think that no matter how much I love complexity and finding connections, there is always going to be a part of me, the part of me that feels an almost emotionally strong conviction of what is right and what is wrong that just wants the answer to simply be correct or incorrect. This conference challenged me to be more flexible.

Another thing that I have noticed, echoing Eric’s post, is the difference in religion’s role in society in South Africa in comparison to the U.S. At first, I was nervous to be interning at an organization that is run by the Southern African Division of Churches (SADC) because I am not religious. At home, when people do overcome the “taboo-ness” of talking about religion, they are often skeptical of my agnosticism. Not only has everyone been welcoming of my beliefs, they have also been so helpful in explaining how their own doctrine has both helped and hurt disregarded communities. In the U.S., I find that people are very polarized in the way they look at institutionalized religion—it is either the only way to truly effect positive change, or it is wholly detrimental. I rarely hear people talk about religion neutrally. I was especially interested to note that AMI’s biggest advocates for marginalized Muslims were members of church associations. It seems that people are not concerned with how you believe, but that you do. Religion here is one of many manifestations of the personal moral codes that every person has. It is not a bunch of mutually exclusive institutions in conflict over who’s explanation of morality is better.

While AMI encouraged me to examine the process of coming to solutions more carefully, the human rights training we had through Africa Unite this weekend empowered me to believe that solutions actually were possible. Being surrounded by people who have experienced life in such a different way than I have, but still have hope for a better world in the same way that I do, was comforting. I loved the opportunity to talk to people about where they came from and how and why they got involved with human rights. So many of the activists there are already doing such amazing things. When I think about activists in history, I think of those random snippets in the columns of history textbooks that most people don’t read because it’s extra work. But those are the people who inspire the thoughts and movements that will create lasting change later on. Putting a face to the type of people who end up in these snippets made me realize how important it is that I continue to pursue justice.