A superficial treaty

Over the weekend there was a march, the International Parade. What does this mean? It means that people dress up in the colours of an assigned country, and march carrying that flag down through the streets of town.

Taking over the streets of Grahamstown

Local groups and schools added to the festivities, leading the march in dance

What it's supposed to be is promoting unity of our Rainbow Nation, and rising up against xenophobia. Because xenophobia has been a problem in South Africa in the past, awareness of it and activism against it is a great idea. The problem is that majority of the people participating don't know this, and just grab the opportunity to dress up with their friends and do something different with their weekend. There were some comments of people not even knowing what many of the flags were, understandably, so some educational value of the march was lost there as well.

Going all out for China

What I found ironic was the way in which different countries "mingled". Because the march represents countries standing together and putting aside their differences, these interactions demonstrate how we can all just get along (as countries). The issue, though, was that most of the countries were being represented by people who don't know anything about the country they are representing, so the meaning of this is lost, to a degree.

Mingling... Any suggestions on which countries these two are?
What about the nature of the relationship between the countries?

Zimbabwe of course had a substantial following, with most
of those representing it being from Zimmmmm

The event was a lot of fun, it certainly brought groups together (like residences and societies), and it was a little educational. Unfortunately it wasn't advertised enough, so there was apparently a smaller turnout than in previous years. With their advertising they also would have been able to get more of the messages across about why they are doing it. Within each country/representing group, they probably also could have worked on making sure that people knew at least a little something about the country.

Margaret Smith House (my res), represented Cameroon. We made "traditional" masks as props, because that seemed to be a common trend on Google, but I think we should at least have found out more about what the masks mean. It was all in good fun, though, and I'm glad we participated. Last year our participation was so enthusiastic that we earned a cake for the res. Let's hope we did so well again this year, that cake was delicious.

Margaret Smith House representing Cameroon

Preparations: Chrissi Preuss (RSA)
paints flags onto Jenny Guild (Zim)