We don't do squat

Author's note: I'm having a devil of a time with the new Blogger layout/platform, especially when trying to upload multiple images in order to tell a story. And because of that, I'm frustrated in trying to write this post. But let's try anyway.

These are scenes from the December 15, 2020, episode of 7de Laan, an Afrikaans-language "soapie" broadcast on SABC 2 in South Africa and available on delay via YouTube. (Currently, episodes posted to YouTube are two weeks behind those shown on South African TV screens. Episodes are generally only available for one week.)

I have watched 7de Laan off and on (but mostly on) since it first started appearing on YouTube, which I believe was aboout 5+ years ago, before I moved to Canada. While I love my soaps, sometimes I get annoyed with the storylines on 7de Laan and will stop watching for a period of time, in favor of a soap with more guts (the late, lamented South African soap Isidingo, which was canceled in March 2020) or with more pizazz and humor (Viudas e hijos de rock and roll on Telefe Internacional).  7de Laan can be "safe" and comfortable sometimes. It doesn't always challenge its audience, and when it does, it does so for only a short time and can wrap things up a little too neatly. 

Even though South Africa has a progressive constitutional government, 7de Laan (and likely other South African soaps) have had challenges integrating Black and White and same-sex relationships into its storylines. Controversies have erupted when it has done so. 

Then again, as I've noted before, it's hardly like the American soaps were quick to adopt similar storylines, and there were also controversies when they did. We may be a few years ahead in telling such stories, but we are likely behind others. And I still stand behind the idea that other countries and cultures do TV better--with more emotion, intelligence, passion, and compassion--than we do. (See Viudas e hijos above, an Argentine novela, which featured a very complex, forward-thinking gay love story through the course of its run in 2014 and 2015. I hope to write about that at a future date.)

Which is a very long intro to relating a recent storyline on 7de Laan about a squatter camp under attack by a property developer. Storylines involving the squatter camp have been told on 7de Laan for at least a couple of years now, which was a welcome, more realistic contrast to the idealized inner city suburban view of Johannesburg that the show often conveys. While at first we "dropped into" the squatter camp from time to time for special stories, more recently the camp and its residents have been featured more prominently, not just as part of a short-term or sensational storyline but with characters who live in the camps featured front and center as part of the full-time cast and front-burner stories.

The three images included here don't feature regular characters. (I hope to make a second post soon that show those.)  However, these do a good job of illustrating the storyline and its impact on the squatter community--the fear, the panic, the immediacy. I appreciate the images because they have a certain Depression-era quality, like a Dorothea Lange photograph.

Squatter camps are not necessarily something we have in the US and Canada, at least on a scale as large as those in many countries. Nevertheless, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I've witnessed a growth in homeless encampments--squatter camps with less permanence--in city parks here in Toronto. And I've seen those camps cleared out overnight. Perhaps not as dramatically as on 7de Laan but I imagine not without a negative, perhaps even traumatic, impact on the residents either.

During this storyline, some of the non-squatting characters, including the property developer, commented that the squatters "can always go to a shelter." True enough, but I'm fairly certain that the rise of park squatters in Toronto is directly related to people steering clear of shelters as a way to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. 

So you can always offer a "simple solution" to the problem, but usually the problem is far more complicated and requires a more nuanced solution. Even if that solution is just to leave everyone alone in place and monitor the community to make sure everyone is safe and healthy.

Anyway, my point in posting these images is perhaps more pedestrian and self-centered: This serves as a good reminder of how fortunate I've been in 2020, despite its challenges (not all of which were related to the pandemic). This also serves as a good reminder that I need to do what I can in 2021 to make sure others are taken care of, not abused, and have the opportunities that we all deserve and yet often take for granted.

Happy new year.