Last Thursday, we ...

Beer swilling and road thronging. Our four protagonists sit on a bench, regarding the madding crowd.

Regina: (suddenly turns and speaks) Let's get serious.

Nonkululeko: Haven't we been talking seriously? Isn't the underdevelopment of Africa by neocolonial multinationals serious enough for you?

Regina: Yes, that's serious. But we need to be serious. How are we to be in this kind of a situation?

Night Crow: We're realistically facing the end of most things we understand, the ways we know how to live. If so, huge numbers of people will almost surely die, the world cast into a death-match free-for-all contesting resources. And already, huge amounts of more than human, four-legged and winged and swimmers, and trees and whole thriving ecosystems, are teetering on the edge of collapse and extinction. Yes, it's serious.

Nelt: Look, I'll be honest. This kind of talk shuts me down. What can I do? Africa is underdeveloped -- does that mean there's no point in me sharing my experience with the downsides of Western society and technology?

Nonkululeko: Hey, share away my brother, just don't expect us to nod and smile and say, "Why didn't we think of that?" and return to the halcyon days of yore when we were happy villagers off to the python hunt.

Crow: That's quite an image!

Nelt: The irony's coming in loud and clear, Nonkululeko, loud and clear. But to play the devil's advocate here -- and surely I'm the candidate -- isn't there something to be said for seeking life more like what there was before colonization? In other words, more authenticity and freedom?

Nonkululeko: Look, the white man has pillaged the whole world's wealth, and not just in gold and labor, but ideas and cultures and technologies of all kinds. The modern era of biopiracy is just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, it's through being colonized ourselves that we came into contact with all this -- but just now that we're developing the power and solidarity and to step into the world community on our two feet, are we to sit down and return to a world of village-scale horizons because the old white elite is scared we won't be able to survive a disaster or two? We'll survive better than anyone else, it's what we've been practicing for hundreds of years (or maybe a lot longer), and it'll be Africa's turn to drive the global civilization you (or your relatives anyway) have left us in tatters.

Crow: The old white elite isn't worried about us -- unless we threaten an uprising. Don't worry about that! But it hardly matters -- they hardly matter -- strange as that is to realize. There's very little they can do to change the course of history. They're trapped.

Nonkululeko: Isn't that wishful thinking?
They still have all kinds of weapons and power. Isn't our job to make sure they're trapped, not just to assume it?

Regina: Either way, what matters is us.