And so “the people” spoke yesterday with two main marches on the Republic of Sandton, the ritzy enclave of affluence in the new South Africa, where the UN has chosen to base the Summit on Sustainability. The marches formed in Alexandra township, better known here as Alex, a pit of poverty for over 300,000 people– literally next door. Unemployment is 63% there; illiteracy is 73%. If you want to see the legacy of apartheid, drop by and see the tin shacks and desperate poverty. One keeps thinking that if the summit was held here (by simply relocating the residents to the hotels next door) then the summit would move with far more deliberate speed.

Writing about the protests on ZNET, activist writer Patrick Bond noted: “The talented South African landless leaders had attracted thousands from across the country. They creatively transformed their convergence centre from an abandoned, surreal 1960s entertainment centre near Soweto to a site where debates raged and where, in small workshops for rural folk, excellent local educators joined international analysts like Berkeley geographer Gillian Hart (author of the amazing new book “Disabling Globalisation”).

However, the landless gathering was full of promise but also pitfalls, as witnessed in the movement’s positive reaction to Mugabe’s invitation for a welcome to the Johannesburg airport this afternoon in advance of the heads of state meeting beginning tomorrow.

Ngwane took the microphone soon after the Zimbabwean ruler’s name was uttered: “While we are happy to have unity with the landless, we respectfully disagree on the matter of Mugabe. He is a dictator and he has killed many Zimbabweans.” Roars of approval followed from, amongst others, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development which had travelled a full day by bus to attend.”

As for the summit, it has been stuck by serious disagreements on trade policy and a refusal by the US delegation to get in step with the rest of the world, even though the Europeans who are battling the Americans are no less guilty for creating and sustaining the eco deprivation of Africa.

Remember colonialism? Well, it is coming back, if it ever really left. Some of these political battles will be resolved cosmetically as horse-trading begins to work out a final documents that the heads of state who start arriving today can embrace for the final photo-op.

(Some activists say progress won’t be made until things get worse, “Johannesburg plus ten” in UN parlance.

Yesterday, the Global Forum, run by the ruling ANC, had a rather poorly attended rally until a few hundred supporters of the Palestinian cause showed up. (Some had traveled for 24 hours on the train from Cape Town.) They and their supporters had signs equating Zionism with Nazism, and even one calling for a boycott of CNN. Palestinian rights are widelys supported here by people who compare their liberation battle to the intifada. They compare South Afrcan apartheid to Israel’s balkinization of Palestian lands. They also sharply critize US support for Israel. One flyer, “The Call of Islam” called for a boycott of American products. (Other south Africans are pissed that an American company trademarked South Africa’s famous Robus tea which has been a specialty here as a generic name for a century! It is now a “brand.” )

The ANC rally was addressed by South African President Thabo Mbeki but was a rather anemic affair. It picked up in energy and size when the 9 kilometer march to Sandton began. That lasted 4 hours. Activists from the anti-globalization movement and landless people’s movement staged a far noisier protest. Some were blasting the ANC. Americans from the Sierra Club and other groups were criticizing the no-show by President Bush (Colin Powell is coming in his stead, a black official better liked in the rest of the world.)

I interviewed landless people’s activists and Native Americans including singer Robbie Romero, and an activist from Indonesia. The most inflammatory sign (and there was only one) in the crowd read: “OSAMA: BOMB SANDTON, KILL BUSH AND MBEKI,”: When I told a South African friend about it, she was shocked but retorted: “Well at least we have freedom of expression here.”

The most exciting freedom of expression I saw was a stage show by singer Johnny Clegg which packed the Civic Theater for 20 sold out performances. Johnny wove his life story into a musical show with clips from his youth when he discovered Zulu musicians and studied Zulu culture. Today many call him “the white zulu” for the artful and sincere ways he speaks the language and does the dances. His show brought the house down. He celebrated the exhuberance of South African culture and showd that whites can enrich their lives by immersing themselves in the cultures of other African peoples. He also commented on the Summit with a hopeful message about the way science and genetics promise a whole new world. He sings about this on his latest CD. (I hadn’t been in the Civic since l992 when I was in South Africa producing a film on the first visit by the Dance Theater of Harlem. It was a tense time. An Afrikaner stabbed our director for walking alongside a black woman. Those were far darker days than these. If you don’t know Johnny Clegg’s work with his first band JULUKA or second one, SAVUKA, get yourself a CD and enjoy. South Africa is a place to feel as well as see.

My trip here is wrapping up. I have seen many old friends, videotaped five reports for World Link Television, had a radio intervew on my new book MEDIA WARS about post 9-11 coverage, assisted a youth media project, and explored bringing Globalvision’s South Africa Now video tape collection to South Africa. And of course I have been filing as many short Weblog entries as I can. I am off to Durban on the Indian Ocean tomorrow and off the next day back to Europe where I speak at the Electronica Conference in Linz on September 9. You can still drop a line with your input to dissector@mediachannel.org It is only eleven days to 9/11.