Dov Stucker is spending the fall semester abroad. Although it’s a sabbatical from facilitating the Burlington City & Lake Semester, it’s not a break from BCL themes. (Alumni will be the first to tell you, once you see your own community through a BCL lens, the whole world begins to change shape.)

BCL11 students are currently using systems thinking to understand the inner-workings of their city, so it seems like a good moment to share how those questions are alive in South Africa. Reprinted for the BCL blog, the following post might describe a place that feels a world away, but the issues of sustainability and social justice are relevant in the Queen City too. 

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In a remarkable act of generosity that is all too common in South Africa, friends-of-friends offered to host our girls for a night of dinner, games, and malva pudding, and insisted that Sara and I enjoy our own dinner at a vineyard, high up in the hills above the city. We found the best clothes in our meager travel wardrobe and hired a car. When we arrived, we were led to a table that faced a wall of windows. The food and wine were incomparable. It was a magical evening. As time slowed, we found ourselves considering the privilege we had, just to be there. 

Privilege is always relative, of course. We were probably the only guests in the dining room that had never been to a fine dining restaurant before. The prix-fixe menu was the same for every patron, but not everyone shared our feeling of awe. Still, even being in that room set us apart from so many. We were literally and figuratively above it all, looking down at the shimmering lights of the city…until the city lights went out. 

Left to right, a giant hand pulled a curtain over a municipality twice the size of Montreal. In less than a minute, the city was pitch black. Catching her breath, Sara quietly said “Brigadoon.” It did feel otherworldly, but of course there is nothing magical about what we saw at city-scale from our high perch. Below us was a structural crisis. 

Today is the 285th straight day in which the power has gone out in South Africa. None of this is a surprise; thanks to the Eskom ESP app, locals have a warning about when the power will go out. Everyone here knows what it means to be in “Stage 2” (when the power goes out for two hours a day), and “Stage 6” (when electricity turns on and off every four hours, for a total of 12 outage-hours per day). For better or for worse, power outages are just part of daily life. 

The explanation for why it has reached this point is both simple and complex. The simple version is that Eskom, the national utility which generates 80% of the country’s power, produces less electricity than the country needs. Without planned outages, the entire system would fail. The full explanation, however, goes well beyond supply and demand, and includes infrastructural and politicall factors, as well as rampant corruption. The power crisis also connects to the climate crisis, since the vast majority of South Africa’s power comes from coal. Although one might think that this would be the perfect opportunity to transition to solar power and distributed generation, the inertia is immense.

While many countries in the Global South are still trying to catch up after hundreds of years of marginalization, South Africa is no backwater. A generation ago, its progress and infrastructure were the envy of its neighbors, and a lighthouse for the continent. A few weeks ago, it hosted the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) conference, and is currently positioning itself as a regional power and a global presence. The conference site had uninterrupted power during Xi and Putin’s stay. Just outside the conference zone, the lights went out. 

While it’s understandable that the words “blackout” or “brownout” would be avoided in a country where less than 8% of people are White, the term “load shedding” still feels euphemistic, even Orwellian. In reality, the weight of this crisis is borne by those who are already the most marginalized. The inequity is inescapable. For homes and businesses with an inverter or uninterrupted power supply (UPS), load shedding barely registers. The hilltop restaurant has its own gas generator, and the lights didn’t even flicker. But for those who don’t have these backup technologies, the consequences are massive. When neighborhoods go dark, small businesses shut down. People’s meager income streams dry up. Streetlights become shadows and home security systems shut down, inviting crime and predation. Load shedding has the unique ability to both amplify injustice, and to make that powerlessness visible. 

A few days ago, as we drove back from the Cape Peninsula, we entered a neighborhood where the traffic lights were out. As we pulled up to the first free-for-all intersection, it felt vaguely like our experience in Amsterdam. But as law and order gave way to communication and negotiation, traffic wasn’t moving at the speed of friendly bicycles; it was moving at the speed of cars, trucks, and mini-bus drivers who careen across asphalt like life is cheap. 

We made it home that day, and we’ll make it home to Vermont. But until something changes, the power will still go out in South Africa.

Dov, 9/13/23