Wednesday, 4 Sep 2002

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

Summer has come to Johannesburg. You can tell from the rains, which come in blazing thunderstorms that rocked our tents last week and ignited the night sky like flashbulbs. The anemic waist-high grass would soon turn bright green, we were told, and the charred fields were already flush with new growth. For the moment, the rains stilled the dust.

Late in the evenings, I read my tattered copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, its spine broken, its back cover now just a bookmark, and talked to my wife on my cell phone (under the blanket, like a kid past bedtime, so as not to wake the people in the other tents). I do not know if the thousands of delegates bedded down in the sparkling hotels of Johannesburg could hear the rains. (Or for that matter, the creatures that chirp and howl throughout the night — some of them rumored to be hyenas in our camp.) Do they know it is summer?

Last week, I stayed at the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Site north of Johannesburg, where some of the oldest human remains have been found. There were more than a hundred of us in safari tents, all grantees of the Ford Foundation, which enabled some 400 grassroots representatives from all over the world to attend the summit. (Ford is the largest single supporter of so-called “civil society” participation — more than any government.) There were plenty of people of who would have preferred to be in town, but in my view, there was nothing better than stumbling into the camp after a long day to tell stories around the fire. Everywhere I turned there were fascinating people; it’s been like an Olympics for social and environmental activists. Without the lycra.

And even out in the bush (“Camp Hemingway,” as I like to call it) we are not without the Internet. There is a small shack at the top of the hill, rustic on the outside, but enter and — it’s like happening upon the secret spy nerve center in a James Bond movie, only inside are social and environmental activists instead of evildoers in yellow jumpsuits. Most of our delegation is outfitted with cell phones (a lifeline amid the chaos), which are constantly whistling Bach Fugues, Dixie, and Mary Had a Little Lamb, like a chorus of tripping crickets.

Summit-to-go.

IISD.

I spent the first few days of the summit at NASREC, a sprawling campus in Johannesburg’s southern, industrial quarter. Although it’s more appropriate for auto shows (which I’m told is the normal fare), NASREC is the site of the Global People’s Forum, the main parallel civil society event, with presentations, discussions, workshops, marches, and performance art. The entrance is lined with people passing out flyers and newspapers, and selling tchotchkes and summit souvenirs of all kinds. Inside, the walls are plastered with advertisements for events and campaigns, and the concrete paths brim with color and music. Above it all snakes a dormant monorail track. People knot and huddle on the steps, under the trees, at the tables outside Halal Foods and Archie’s Hamburgers and the dozens of other snack joints. (We’re faithful to Halal, especially for the samosas and vegetable curry.) They pore over schedules and pamphlets and occasionally erupt in riotous laughter.

The official event, the WSSD, where the diplomats and heads of state meet, is 45 minutes across town from NASREC, in Sandton. That area is a high-rent forest of crystalline spires, polished granite, and fences (of course), plus barbed wire to channel the foot traffic and cops to sift the crowd at the door. This is the site of the negotiations on a plan of action to implement the sustainable development ideals drafted in Rio 10 years ago. So this is really a tale of two summits. The governments and big-boy NGOs have rented space in Sandton to woo and strategize. It is telling that few of them made it to NASREC over the last two weeks. Some of them didn’t even know what NASREC was.