COP 17: A perspective through the lens of a non-social justice activist

Daphine Mlambo* raises important questions for building the social justice movement against the backdrop of COP17.

We have to move away from a society that is obsessed with consumption and consumerism.

– Prince Albert of Monaco

The most important question this article seeks to pose is: “What was COP 17 and did all the civic organisations who attended the Committee of 17’s events understand the purpose of being there?” Khanya College amongst other NGOs travelled to Durban from the 30th of November to the 8th of December 2011. Khanya college is a social justice organisation that provides platforms for communities to mobilise and organise around social injustice faced in their constituencies. At the time the issues we looked at were around environmental justice. The COP17 event was very important for Khanya comrades and for me especially, as we got to dialogue and participate in some of the proceedings.

There were a number of seminars arranged at the University of Kwazulu Natal – the Howard College campus and all the Khanya College staff were privileged to attend different seminars and conferences. As some sessions went on, I interviewed a few people who had been sponsored by C17 to attend the conferences. The interviews were done randomly and fortunately both activists and non-activists were interviewed. The results varied depending on the level of activism of the people interviewed.

Interview

The most interesting interview was with a woman from Johannesburg (name withheld). She arrived on the 2nd of December by train. She noted that a train was commuting every second day to bring activists to attend events leading to the Heads of States Conference. From the interview, it seemed that she didn’t know what COP 17 was all about, but she was invited by her aunt to travel with her to Durban. “My aunt works for a social justice organisation and she understands all the events and deliberations happening in most conferences”. She expressed no interest in what was going on around her during her visit to Durban. She came because she wanted to experience Durban.

As I interviewed her, she complained about how she felt left out when her aunt attended seminars and she had nothing to do. Her main concerns were about where she slept at the refugee camp and the food they got from there. “I feel out of place”, she said with a lot of concern. I would argue that this woman had hoped to stay in a luxurious hotel, get the best food and maybe visit one of the most famous Durban beaches. But this was met with disappointment as the accommodation and food was the opposite, and hence her feelings of being out of place. The question is: how did she manage to take a seatt on a train to Durban as an environmental activist when she barely knew what she was doing there?

This interview stuck with me and I wanted to question everyone: did everyone who attended the C17 events understand what was happening; and did the C17 organising committee research who was to participate?

I found the whole idea problematic as this meant that some people were not activists but capitalised on events arranged around environmental social justice issues. This explains why the woman interviewed had a different agenda to the environmental activists, and therefore everything around her wasn’t interesting and she didn’t identify herself within that context. This also raises questions about the C17 committee’s organising and their politics and this woman’s aunt.. Was there enough educational information and mobilisation done to ensure that the people attending these events were committed activitists or was this just an opportunity to travel to Durban?

For me this was an injustice to the social justice fraternity. This interview made me question and also doubt. It is very important to ask ourselves as activists whether we will ever be able to combat capitalism? How best can we educate community members on social issues? We need to try and move away from some of our obsessions and fight for a just society. On a final note, a lot has to be deliberated on the proceedings of the C17 and its events in Durban.