In commentary on Joel Spring's "The Triumph of the Industrial-Consumer Paradigm and English as the Global Language" (International Multilingual Research Journal, 2007, 1, 2, 61-78), essentially the final chapter of Spring's 'Pedagogies of Globalization: The Rise of the Educational Security State' (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2006), Southern African perspectives on Spring's industrial-consumer model are presented, showing that English functions on the margins of South African society, where it is used, often imaginatively, for personal survival while the official South African discourse takes pride in language diversity with 11 official languages and a metaphor of a "rainbow nation." An alternative educational model based on African popular culture is proposed; its central tenets neutralize such oppositions as work vs. play and imitation vs. creativity. It is emphasized that, although South African youths are voracious consumers, they transform the consumerist model through creative imitation and adaptation, both consuming and producing popular culture. (J. Hitchcock) (LLBA, Accession Number 200811799, (c) CSA [2008]. All rights reserved.)