Politics and dancing

My Mother / My Self

2011-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

They say home is where the heart is – or where it longs to be.
Or maybe, home is where the food is.
Or possibly home is where the mother is.
Likely, it’s all three.

In Zami, Audre Lorde connects home to a place she’s never seen, a place her mother dreams of filled with smells and tastes of mango and limetrees and spices and chocolate in a tea tin. Denise Chavez connects home to tacos, particularly and incessantly, and to her mother’s presence in a tiny house with a blue-filled room. For James McBride, home is confusing, split, sometimes here and sometimes there, but always where his mother resides.

Mother and food and heart – the three are entwined in ways far more tightly than the connections to fathers, which seem somehow not nearly as intimate though no less strong and full of love / memory / heart. How is it that our lives get tangled into the lives and dreams and food of our mothers? What necessary connection between the womb and our movement through the world? Freud was on to something.

When I think of my mother, images of her in the kitchen spring to mind most readily – or over a campfire, or strapping pot roast to the underside of our car on a road trip through the desert. It’s all about the food, isn’t it? Unlike Chavez, my food memories / mother memories do not center around any one type of food. No, in my memories my mother is always cooking something different, something she saw on The Galloping Gourmet or read in Julie Childs’ cookbook, or finagled out of a friend. My first dinner party: I was 10 years old and invited my friends over to cook pizza. They’d never cooked pizza; for me, it was what we did – my mother, myself, adding vegetables and cheese to flattened home-made dough.

Mother / home / food. Is there a way to dissect these three concepts, to break them apart? Or are they forever melded, held together by blood?

My mother / my heart / myself / home – 419 Hermosa Dr. NE. My mother grew up in that house, I spent my summers there from the time I was too young to have memories. And the food I remember in that house is cinnamon toast, covered with buttery sweetness on both sides.

Home is the sound of my mother’s laughter, and her voice a year before she died telling me she loved me – a message I listen to and save again each time I get a voicemail – mixed well with the taste of chicken cacciatore and filtered through memories of the Thanksgiving meal she created one year with my much-older boyfriend. Their voices arguing over how exactly to stuff mushrooms correctly drift through my heart and through my memories of the year I moved out of my childhood home for good.

Mymothermyself.

If I close my eyes, she returns home, and I hear the tinkling of ice in her tea glass, swirling round and round as she stirs, sitting at the kitchen table.

Religious Extremism by any other name...

2010-08-03T15:28:00.001-07:00

Hmmm. If the argument against the Muslim community center / mosque at Ground Zero is that building it would be disrespectful to all the people who died there at the hands of a few "Islamic extremists," then by golly it sure seems like building a cathedral anywhere in Spain or England ought to cause outrage. Thousands died in those countries at the hands of those claiming to be Christian - ever hear of the Inquisition? Or Bloody Mary?

To say nothing, of course, of the Crusades through the 'bible lands;' using the above logic, then, no Christian places of worship should be built - or exist at all - in any of those countries.

I'm not even going to try to be poetic or profound here. All I have to say is what a bunch of crap.

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo

2010-01-14T21:34:00.001-08:00

Wrote this for a class, thought it might be interesting if anyone wants to know more about the movie. See entire film here or on a PBS station near you. http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo

What happens when “two ordinary guys” from Queens decide to follow in the footsteps of one of the most (in)famous travelers in history? Two years of adventure, danger, frustration, sometimes boredom, sometimes joy, and ultimately an exploration of both the far distant past, and their own present.

In the Footsteps of Marco Polo is the truly captivating recounting of those two years. To say it is a recounting of the journey of a lifetime is quite literally true: it took Marco Polo 24 years to complete, from 1271-1295, and the two men’s journey is no less an epic adventure.

The documentary begins with a male voiceover, over a slightly Eastern-style music, reciting the names of exotic, far away places, overlaying still photos of what we assume might be images of those very places. Right away the film draws us in, asking “can you imagine all those places, the magical names, Samarkand, Bukhara, Beijing, Iran, Afghanistan…” and we step into the world of Francis O’Donnell and Denis Belliveau. As an opening it is quite effective, and as O’Donnell finishes naming the magical places, we get a shot of him talking in classic documentary interview format – to one side of the screen, speaking to someone we cannot see. The next voice we hear, again overlaying still images of more exotic places, is Belliveau’s, and again we cut to him and he speaks. This becomes a motif in this film – exotic, exciting images with a voiceover, then a cut to either O’Donnell or Belliveau speaking to an interviewer. I discuss later the effect this has as the film in the ‘present,’ the men’s journey in their past, and Marco Polo’s journey in the 13th century begin to merge into one fluid moment that seems to have no bounds.

The images are lovely, indeed, and serene if only because they are still. Then, suddenly, the silence and our sense of wonder and maybe envy at this journey we know we are about to witness is shattered by the sound of gunfire, and a filmed firefight. The music stops, and Belliveau’s voiceover here speaks of their kidnapping, having an AK47 pointed at his head, and being sure he would die. “My family would never know what had happened to me out here, my body would never be found. And all for what?” This becomes yet another motif: the danger they faced more than a few times as they attempted to find traces of Marco Polo in places far from the present in many ways. Interwoven throughout are serenity and danger, stillness and movement. This theme carries through the entire movie, in much the same pattern.

All this happens before the credits. When the film proper starts, we begin to learn just what was worth risking their lives for.

The voiceover is female, which is at first jolting, unexpected. Where did O’Donnell and Belliveau go? Who is this woman and why is she telling their story? We never get a clear answer, and yet this third voice becomes an unseen narrator of the adventure the two men took, and we follow their path across continents and oceans with her as our guide. When we hear the men’s voice, we know we will see them speaking – when we hear her, we know we will hear more of their story. It was quite effective, and acted as a balance for what was in all other respects a very male-centered story.

Again, simply stupendous still images, some upbeat fitting music, and the female voiceover comes in to create the myth. She takes us far back into history and tells us about Marco Polo’s world. Again using still images, showing us what we assume are pictures of Marco Polo, the book he wrote about his adventures, she begins to connect the patterns from the opening sequence to what the film will be: history/today/adventure/history/today/adventure, ad infinitum. After Marco Polo’s greatness, she continues in her creation myth when she introduces O’Donnell and Belliveau. These men are ordinary, not scholars or historians, not connected to any university or group. This sets up what we need to know – what we have to believe – about the men to make their travel both more exciting, and more accessible. If they can do it, maybe we can, too.

Some classic documentary techniques are utilized.

• The creation of truth by the juxtaposition of voiceover and image – which may or may not actually be the thing or event being discussed at that moment.
• The use of still images to tell the story as the narrator and the two travelers tell it.
• The interview of the two travelers recounting the story as we see it unfold.
• Seemingly unstaged encounters and conversations with people along the way.
• No attempt to hide the camera.

Each of these added truth-value to the film.

One of the more unique elements of this film was the interweaving of past and present, and how this interweaving seemed to erase the boundaries between the two. Marco Polo’s adventure became O’Donnell and Belliveau’s adventure complete with in some cases encountering the very same customs, ruins, and one immense reclining Buddha. It became difficult to determine whose story we were following, and then comes the realization: it is all their stories, and ours as well.

Ultimately the message of this documentary was profound, yet it had less to do with walking through history than it does with looking to the future. Yes, the people these men encountered, and their customs, were exotic and exiting. Yes the landscape was unique, vibrant and at times life-threateningly hazardous. And yes, the ruins and statues Marco Polo saw 700 years before were still there, still touchable, and somehow a link to the past. But as the film comes to a close, the filmmakers step out of the past – both the ancient and the near – and move toward a future that can be just as wondrous.

Their journey comes to an end where it started, in Venice, and the last images we see are of their lives ‘today’ – the present of the film itself. O’Donnell is an artist living in Queens, and we see his work in vibrant color. Belliveau is married with children, and also still in Queens. Is all life, then, and all journeys, a circle? Do we end up where we started? And if so, have we become changed by our adventures on the way to that point?

Belliveau believes this is true. His last words sum up what this film both exposes, and holds close to its heart: As still images and short moments of video dissolve one into the next across the screen, Belliveau says, “I would say that most of the world is full of good people. There’s a lot more good people on the planet than bad.” The images keep coming. Closeups of men and women, boys and girls, all beautiful in a way that is beyond words – their faces shine. A trick of photography? Something we have learned along the way that makes this so? Or reality shining through?

O’Donnell’s voice fades in: “It’s easy to hate someone you never met. Travel is the enemy of bigotry.” And as we get now quick video clips of both of them encircled by those they met along the way – from monks to soldiers, from small boys to half-naked warriors, and from women in multi-colored veils to ancient men in shorts – all of them in essence embodying this message, O’Donnell says “Get out there. Meet them. They’re good.”

Indeed, this becomes the lesson.

To stay in one place is death to innovation, wonder, joy, and understanding. But to return home having experienced the world is a gift not only to ourselves, but to all those we touch with our stories.

This documentary was remarkable in many ways, not least because of the essential simplicity of the pieces that went into the creation of its whole. Simple, still images, interviews with only the two travelers, some video footage taken along the way, and three uniquely different storytellers whose voices filled in the blanks and wove history into the present. Somehow the film became more than the sum of its parts, and at the end we are left with a feeling of hope.

Men into Monsters

2009-12-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a photo that made me both joyful, and unutterably sad. It was of a Palestinian man holding a baby aloft. The baby is bundled in a striped sweater and green pants, and is standing in the man’s hands as he holds them out in front of him. Both are laughing, and the baby’s arms are straight out from its body.

This photo and the emotions I felt, and the actions a ‘friend’ took when I posted a response to this photo on Facebook are emblematic for me of both what’s absolutely right and what’s terribly wrong in the world.

My first reaction was one of joy – my heart literally filled with joy when I looked at this man’s face, the little baby, the way the man held it with such love, the moment of happiness they shared. Unadulterated love, unmitigated and whole.

On the heels of that joy came a sharp sadness akin to despair. The fact that these were Palestinian people brings with it a hundred other associations, the most potent of which for me this morning was that in the world today, joy and happiness and fat little babies standing on outstretched arms can be obliterated, destroyed by hatred and ignorance.

I am not talking specifically of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I am not talking of the Middle East. I am not talking of today or yesterday or last year or the last decade, but of all of that time, and as far back into the past as people have been looking at each other and seeing anything other than themselves.

I look at this photo and I see people in a moment of joy, and I ache for the joy that is shattered every day, in all parts of the world, because people cannot see each other.

We – everyone, a generic ‘we’ – turn people into monsters and then send bombers to drop death into their midst. We call them heathen, infidel, terrorist, evil-doers, and thereby give ourselves license to kill. And we create hell from a distance and then don’t understand how this creates hatred in return.

I am astounded that death of any kind is acceptable, that war is seen as inevitable, that ever bigger and more lethal weapons are created and used to destroy cities, ancient art, history, families, people. Babies standing with outstretched arms on men’s hands.

Can it be simply that these people who condone this kind of death are unaware of what death looks like – the blood, the body parts, the screaming of those left alive? Can it be that they think the worth of a person is measured by their belief in a certain god or a way of living? Can it be that they believe in a cause so wholeheartedly that it does not matter whom they destroy on their way to a the desired goal? Can it be that they don’t see that for every lost parent, a child mourns?

All this was in my mind as I posted on Facebook a very simple statement about the photo, the baby, and how my day was made brighter by their existence. Less than an hour later, a ‘friend’ unfriended me. This person is Jewish. She believes that death is justly visited when it involves a ‘homeland’ she has never been to, clothed in a religion she was not born into. I don’t know if my post is why she decided I am no longer someone she wants to be associated with. I don’t actually care. The coincidence is too striking not to be noteworthy, and I suspect that, given her postings during the Israel/Gaza conflict last year, in which more than one thousand Palestinians died at the hands of the IDF, the fact that I found the smiles of these particular people in this particular picture beautiful, was abhorrent to her. I suspect it also frightened her. If she begins to think of them as people who love their children, they become harder to kill.

Maybe this is the whole point: that those who choose not to listen, who choose not to look at photos of men with children, who can think of ‘them’ as somehow other than ‘us’ can be so frightened by evidence of love that they need to turn their eyes away.

When will enough be enough? When will death and killing and destruction of lives be unacceptable to enough people worldwide to shift the balance, to make killing not a last resort, but a non-option?

How many babies looking with joy at their fathers, at their mothers, at their grandparents, need to die before the blood stops flowing? And when will mothers of children be able to see and understand that same love in an-other’s eyes, and not turn away?

I am often on the verge of despair.

http://online.wsj.com/media/0417pod01.jpg

Things Fall Apart

2009-11-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

As I read this week’s readings for a class I am currently taking, which were all about rational choice, realism, and international war, I was unprepared for the overwhelming feelings of both despair and anger that washed over me.

So, let me rant polly-anna-ish for a moment, although typically I’m not a ‘let’s all just get along’ kind of person. However, just for now, I need to pretend that another way is possible.

______________________

As far as I can tell we - the world, the leaders who could make a difference if they only just stepped back and looked at the world a bit differently - are caught in old patterns and assumptions… for instance, the assumption that war is necessary, that war is an option and that empathy or some kind of humane-ness is possible when you’re destroying lives, livelihoods, civilizations, hope.

And where is the disconnect, and why aren’t more people talking about it, between thinking of nuclear weapons as unthinkable, but compartmentalizing land mines into being okay? How could either of them be considered more humane, more okay, than the other? How can a bullet that explodes someone’s head be conceived of as something ‘thinkable’ and ‘okay’ and somehow balanced against nuclear weapons as proof. “Nukes are bad, we’d never do that. This new conventional way to kill people, though… look how cool THIS is.”

Some say ‘well, war is really not okay, but it’s the world we live in,’ or some version of that. But, it turns out that war is, on some level, okay, acceptable, understood, expected. Because if war and all that goes with it – death, maiming, destruction of ancient monuments and new families – were really, truly unacceptable, we would find a way NOT to do it.

People spend thousands of hours, thousands of dollars, all kinds of effort and energy, figuring out how to kill each other better, more efficiently, more cheaply, more… humanely (it makes me cringe to write that). I keep thinking that all that money might be better spent for food, clothing, shelter, or… I don’t know… EDUCATION maybe. And the money spent on the studies about how better to kill people could instead be spent on studies about how to help them stay alive.

Rant over.

Screaming Radio

2009-10-19T13:37:00.001-07:00

When did the left become so loud?

I have been listening to liberal radio for a long time, and have had a few people I liked a lot, and some not so much.

For a long time my faves were:

Stephanie Miller
Rachel Maddow
Thom Hartman

Randi Rhodes
Ed Shultz

Things have changed.

First...

Stephanie Miller and her mooks (Jim Ward and Chris Lavoi) are wonderful, great fun and irreverent, and have some perspectives I wouldn't necessarily pick up on. Also, hey, they DON'T SCREAM at callers or at me. They and coffee in the morning get me going.

Rachel Maddow is simply stunning in every way. Intelligent, biting, funny, insightful, and she doesn't back down. She *also* DOESN'T SCREAM.

Thom Hartman has a wealth of knowledge, acknowledges people's points, interviews both right and left people, and seems to respect others. I infer this because he DOESN'T SCREAM either.

The last two?

Ed Shultz: I used to like his approach because I felt he was balanced, would listen to people, would give credit when others had a point even if he didn't agree. I agreed with much of what he had to say.

However, sometime in the last few months he seems to have gone off some personal, internal deep end and now thinks it's acceptable to SCREAM at his callers and belittle them and shout his own opinion over theirs.
Lost me as a listener.

Randi Rhodes: Took me a while to warm up to her. Originally I thought she was overbearing and rude. Then, she either calmed down or I learned to appreciate her - and I still think she's incredibly smart and has a lot of good things to say, and some great insights. When she was in New York with Air America she was pretty aggressive and loud with callers, and belittled them, and I didn't like it then and had stopped listening. After a short time on some Florida network and then on into a new venue, she calmed down and I listened a lot.

However somehow again lately she has begun belittling callers again, and has started REALLY yelling. Often she doesn't seem to get the nuances of what people are trying to say, which surprises me; she used to be better at seeing between the lines and behind the words. Case in point: this morning, talking with a poli-sci professor (so presumably he knows more than she does about his particular area of focus/interest) she yelled at him about why he was wrong about the news. He was trying to make the point that we turn on the TV to look for those people and venues (that we interpret as news) that will reinforce out own perception of the way the world works. She locked onto the fact that people don't understand what "news" is, and totally missed his point. His answer there, had she not yelled at him, might have been 'you're right, but that's not my point... let's say people think they're turning on the news... regardless of whether that's true, that's another subject. They think it's news, and they turn on that which reinforces their already held beliefs.' She would, likely, AGREE with that, but never got there because she SCREAMED over him.

When a person loses enough track of his/her own (un)importance or (lack of) wealth of knowledge about a subject enough to not acknowledge that someone else actually might know more than he or she does, and then SCREAMS over that person... sorry, Lost me as a listener.

Mike Meloy is as obnoxious as Glenn Back.
And Rush is unspeakably... well, words fail me.

That's all I have to say about screaming radio.

Interrogations - Coco Fusco and a call to arms

2009-10-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

A Field Guide for Female Interrogators

Coco Fusco

A review, sort of:

Coco Fusco’s A Field Guide was oddly powerful. Short, only 142 pages long, with large type, it took me less than an hour to read. Yet, I wouldn’t call it an easy book. It hits home in a number of ways – asking, in essence, that we confront our understandings of, and admit our biases and stereotypes about, women, war, torture, and fear to name just a few of the things she covers.

I found myself taking notes on almost every page. Not just about my project on the Hercules Teams in NYC but about the importance of thinking about how our accepted cultural norms are embedded so deeply that even those of us who consider ourselves feminists, even those of us who (think we) oppose(d) the War on Terror and all it entails, and even those of us who were horrified and sickened by the (fraction of the total number of) abuses revealed in Iraq, are in many ways complicit with the very actions we (conceptually) abhor.

Fusco starts with her own reactions to the photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and follows those reactions through to a rather despairing conclusion: that at least in the military, feminism seems to have devolved into a simple equation: equality = act just like a man. And that includes perpetrating violence in a number of arenas – particularly in interrogation rooms.

In order to understand interrogation techniques so she can hope to understand why women seem to be participating without qualm, Fusco and a group of women academics attend an interrogation school. While she learns a lot, she doesn’t seem to learn quite what she’d hoped to; she was looking for the why, and she got the how. Still, she successfully gives us a sense of the setting, and the possibility for understanding how sexuality and vulnerability come into play in the wielding of power.

Fusco’s continued use of ‘we’ and ‘us’ to refer to women bothered me at first. In essence this phrasing pulls all women into her point of view, and assumes that our perceptions and reactions will be the same as hers – because we are women. Cultural theorists and feminists have spent a great many years taking this notion apart. “Women” is not ‘a group’ defined by any characteristics that cross all the boundaries, and cannot be understood as such. Eventually I realized that Fusco does this on purpose. ‘We’ are indeed who she speaks for – maybe women, maybe Americans, maybe Westerners, maybe the readers of her book. Whoever ‘we’ are, she is part of us.

This is based on the same argument as her exploration of the source of our shock when we find out that women have participated voluntarily in strategic aggression: power plays with fellow soldiers, and harsh and violent interrogation techniques. Her argument is that our shock at finding out that women participated in the abuses in Abu Graib, and that female soldiers in fact (appear to) use their femininity as power, is unfounded because it is based on American society’s belief in a false collective female ethical or moral high ground based on our history as oppressed victims. In other words: we believe women wouldn’t really participate in torture because they / we are somehow not wired that way; they / we are ethically / morally unable to use power in that manner.

I felt the same resistance to her use of the initials US (without the periods, as in U.S.) to refer to the United States). The United States became US became us, became me. Her use of language made me part of the problem.

And yet, that indeed is her entire point. I am complicit. Her book is a call to arms, really, and a challenge. Do ‘we’ sit back and continue to rationalize this War on Terror and the abuses it is perpetrating on hundreds of thousands of people away by ignoring it, by assuming that our protests of its inception were enough, by feeling horrified? Or do we step up?

At least, that’s what I took from it. And my answer is that I step up.

Obama Reads??

2009-08-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

I received an email the other day about Obama's reading habits. As it turns out, at least with this one book, his reading habits are exactly mine: The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria.

Zakaria, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in India to Muslim parents, and attended a private school in India through Grade 12 that is one of the best in Mumbai. He has been called a conservative, a centrist, and a liberal, and is know for actually paying attention to what’s going on in the world and thinking through issues. He does not identify himself based on party lines or issues, but on logic.

He has a BA from Yale where he was president of the Yale Political Union, and a PhD from Harvard where he directed a research project on American foreign policy. He is currently editor of Newsweek International, has written for the NY Times, Wall Street Journal and others, and hosts CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.

So he’s kinda smart, and has a lot of insight into the world, and his books are well-received by the international political and foreign affairs communities.

The fact that our president is reading his book heartens me. Unlike Bush, who didn’t crack a book and as a result had no clue about anything other than… well, had no clue, Obama actually thinks, and wants to be well-informed, and takes others’ opinions and ideas, and consults experts. Zakaria is one such expert.

But do you know what was appended to this photo? This text:

“The name of the book Obama is reading is called The Post-American World, written by a fellow muslim. Post-America – The world After America ??? Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal to expose Obama's radical ideas and intent for this country!”

So the issues here are legion but I’ll focus only on three.

First, Post American does NOT mean after America, and anyone who reads and believes THAT simply does not understand post-anything in cultural terms. Those people are going to be starting from a foundation that is false; they will therefore come to false conclusions.

Second, this book will not have been read by most people who will be horrified by the photo, and who will believe the implied message in the accompanying text. See above paragraph for false assumptions and false conclusions.

And third, reading a book does not intent prove. Reading Alice in Wonderland does not prove the reader will go eat mushrooms. Reading the Bible does not prove the reader will not commit adultery, steal money from his constituents, or get divorced. Reading Bukowski does not mean one is an alcoholic. And reading a book written by a Muslim does not a Muslim make. (And even if it DID, that is another entire issue for another post - Muslim does not equal bad, evil, wrong, monster, and those who would believe THAT are a whole other problem inherent in this post-9/11 world... and that isn't even addressing the fact that that belief about Muslims has existed for centuries. Again, another post.)

I am incensed and stymied by the masses of America. Are they (yes, ‘they’ – I refuse to be lumped in with them) REALLY this stupid? Are the masses of people really this uneducated, really this gullible, and really this ready to believe the worst of President Obama? Can this implied threat truly be credible to anyone?

I can only shake my head and forge on, and hope that, possibly, the next generation won’t be afraid of becoming educated, and won’t spend their lives wallowing in ignorance and fear.

I Don't Want Equal Rights

2009-08-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

I am a woman who has benefited immeasurably in my life from the actions and bravery of women before me who fought oppression, who stood up for themselves and declared their rights and abilities to do whatever the hell they chose to do. I have studied the lives of Gertrude Bell, Alexandra David-Neel, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, Arundhati Roy…. and women pirates for that matter. I get that women have had to fight damn hard for their rightful place as equal in all things.

As a result of those women’s actions (and hundreds more women through the ages), I have never felt constrained by the ‘limits’ of being female; it never occurred to me to question whether I could do something. I ran a printing press for years, long before many women were in that field. I traveled alone for most of my life – across the country and across the world. I worked as a horseback guide into the wilderness areas of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and was a working ‘cowboy’ – the only woman among many men – on a working ranch in Texas.

So I get it.

Women can do whatever they want.

I agree, and think they should not only ‘be allowed to’ do whatever they want, but should just DO whatever they want, without assuming they need anyone’s permission to do it.

Today I opened the New York Times and on the front page was met with this headline: “G.I. Jane Stealthily Breaks the Combat Barrier.”

The article is a long one. Essentially the gist of it is… women are now going into battle with ever more frequency in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are working hard and earning the respect (another issue, one I’ll save for another post… why is it assumed women have to earn the respect of men in some kind of different way than men would??) of those they go into battle with. And they are getting shot at, and they are shooting back.

I don’t believe battle is innately against women’s nature, I don’t believe women should be or are any more suited for taking care instead of taking lives, and I don’t think there is some essential womanhood-ness these women soldiers are betraying. Identity is fraught with problems and pitfalls, and I don’t presume to believe women “shouldn’t” go into battle if that’s what they want. I even understand the impetus behind wanting maybe to ‘defend my country’ (if I believed that killing people in Afghanistan qualified as that), or help others (if I believed that killing people in Afghanistan qualified).

What makes me shudder is that war has become (no… there is no becoming in war, it has always been, on some level and to some people) an acceptable part of life on earth. We mouth the words ‘peace on earth/goodwill toward MEN,’ we prattle on about how sad but necessary it is that the U.S. must ‘help’ others less-aware/able/advanced to reach (our version of some kind of acceptable) democratic government, and we talk peace while hiding behind our country’s status as the most powerful – and a very aggressive – nation on earth. It’s easy to subscribe to the rhetoric of peace when you’ve got a big stick to enforce it.

And into this milieu of war-as-necessary, homeland-in-need-of-defense (i.e., running around the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq), women have thrust themselves, searching for yet another barrier to break. (For the sake of my argument, I’ll ignore the fact that this barrier has been broken for centuries; women have been warriors in many cultures throughout history – check out Boudicca for one early example.)

I don’t make light of these women’s service. I never make light of the service of soldiers – they are, for good or ill, for right or wrong, in a literal line of fire for what they believe. This takes courage. I get that too.

And, still, I read this article with a sick feeling in my stomach. History, women’s rights, and equality aside, it comes down to one thing: Essentially, women have earned the (equal) right to kill. Yay for them.

For you see, I don't want this right. I refuse to claim it. In this area of 'women's rights' I refuse to step up.

No Pictures Please

2008-07-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I read in a New York Times article that photojournalists are not being allowed to photograph - and certainly not allowed to print anything they do manage to get - anything the U.S. government deems too... shall we say, too real. The story was about a photographer not allowed anymore to even be near 'sensitive' areas in Iraq; from what I can tell, this is standard procedure.

I won't even discuss freedom of speech, freedom of information, censorship or the rest. That is certainly an issue but one (or many) I'll leave to others. For now I just want to focus on the basic concept that because of this sanitizing of the photos we see here in the U.S., many people still believe what we're doing over there is a good thing.

For the sake of this post I'll stay away from the actual politics and not talk about whether we have a right to be there, whether we should be leaving now or later, what lies were told to get us there in the first place, and I'll, again, focus on photos.

Anyone not an idiot has been sure to notice the lack of images of war in the news - we don't see the blood, the gore, the body parts. We don't see Americans dying. We hear cold numbers - 4,000. Four thousand and more dead in a war... and we see none of it?

We don't see Iraqis dying. The numbers here range from 10,000 - 100,000 depending on who you listen to - at its lowest, it's more than double the Americans who died.

And no matter who it is, we see no pictures. We don't see the screaming children covered in blood, the broken faces of mothers and fathers who have lost their sons or daughters in errant firefights, mistaken identity, stray bullets, or a suicide bomb. We don't see the shattered shops or homes. We don't get before and after images that shows us that Baghdad wasn't a backwater slum to begin with. This we don't see because it would make us monsters.

We don't see the destruction on the face of a young soldier who has just had to kill a man, who has seen his comrades die at his side, who has to live his life facing the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of tens, of hundreds of people. This we don't see because it would make us ask 'is it worth it?'

We don't see dead soldiers. At least, we don't see dead American soldiers. These we don't see because it would make it too real.

When we do see dead soldiers, they are nameless Iraqis. These we get to see because they are, after all, not us. They are 'other,' they are enemy.

Ultimately, we don't see this war. We get excuses: showing photographs of the dead will hurt the families; it will dishonor the dead; it is not the point.

Actually, it is the only point.
If Americans could actually see - in living, bloody color - what war does to people, they might think twice (or four times, or eight) about sending young men and women out to kill others.
If Americans could see - in living, bloody color - what death really looks like, they'd be a lot less likely to vote into office another man who would jump at the chance to attack, who believes war is inevitable.
And if Americans were actually allowed to see - in living, bloody color - what war truly IS, they would, I think, work harder to figure out how not to destroy lives in this way again.

As it is, we open the paper and see words on the page: another soldier died in Kirkuk, another suicide bomber killed 10 or 20 or 40; another house was mistakenly bombed and 5 children killed. These words might begin to tell a story, but for us to truly understand, we need to see it.

We need to see what we bring into the world. We need to see what our actions do. For if we cannot see - in living, bloody color - what five children killed really looks like, then that is the tragedy. That is the dishonor. And that is the path to yet more and more - and more - dead children.

I say let the photographers in, let them make their own choices about what is fit for us to see. It's easy. If you don't want to see what this war is, what it does, what we do - then don't look.

It is always our choice to turn away and to choose what not to see.

Globalization and Starbucks

2008-07-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

You know... I have to say that I am of mixed feelings about the concept of Globalization.

I agree 100% that the destruction of cultures in the name of progess is reprehensible. Western culture is particularly insidious; it is seen by many as the 'civilized' world, and many countries want to not only emulate but also participate in Western culture... opening the doors for the horrifying spectre of a McDonald's in Piazza Rotunda last year. I am frightened that the merging of cultures (really, the encroaching of Western ideas on the rest of the world) might result in the disappearance of local cultures everywhere. (I'm not convinced this is inevitable but for the sake of argument I can state vehemently that if it happened, this would be tragic.)

However, if the concept of Globalization is understood as an opening of communication, a sharing of ideas and concepts and/or a breakdown of stereotypes and misunderstandings throughout the world, with easier access to others' cultures and ideas... and if it all is approached with care, then I applaud it.

As with the advent of any new thing, it is the application of the technology or concept that matters, not the thing itself. Arguments could be made for the good and bad in almost every concept or invention throughout history -- from the big giant stick that could be used both as a weapon to beat one's neighbor or as an oar to row a boat, to nuclear power which has the potential to destroy us all, or power entire countries -- and Globalization is just as potentially terrifying, and potentially wonderous.

Bottom line... I dread the day Starbucks worms its way into Rome (though at home I visit it three times a week or more), and I hope countries worldwide don't get caught up in the game of trying to "keep up" by installing Western versions of all things in their cities and their lives. The danger lies in the potential for destruction of cultures around the globe.

On the other hand, I have faith that people will hold to their senses of identity (another slippery concept) and will still be Italians, still be Turkish, still be Germans, whether drinking a glass of wine or eating an order of fries.

I hope.....

New Directions

2008-07-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've been writing on various slips of paper for a number of years the following goals:

Travel, Write and Teach
Run writing retreats in Italy
Learn Middle Eastern Dance
Speak Italian
Travel in Turkey
Write movies
Write books

All of which seemed normal and doable - and so, I did them. And continue to do them. But there was this other goal...

Be Peter Bergen... wait, what?

Obviously I don't want to really be Peter Bergen - that would be silly, and impossible. What I want is to do what he does, or what I imagine he does based on reading his books and hearing him speak.

To that end I finally applied for and was accepted into a PhD program at the University of New Mexico to study... cultural theory, terrorism - the history, the mindset, the groups, the way they shift and eventually become entities other nations will deal with - and how 'othering' is accomplished through word and image in media, and what are its inevitable results. What I intend to do with this degree is write about, teach, and become an expert on those subjects. (See, there's the tie to Peter Bergen - tenuous as it is. I'll be an expert on terrorism in the Middle East, an expert on othering, and will theoretically be called by CNN or other news orgs to give my two-cents worth. Would love to be interviewed on Foreign Exchange, too, once I actually have something to say.)

I set up this blog spot specifically to have a space for my thoughts on various political and cultural issues as they came to me. I subsequently wrote nothing in it for a year.

I'm back. The PhD program will provide me with not only a place to learn and explore new concepts and ideas, but will generate a ton of new thoughts about the world we live in, the way it's shaping up and breaking down, and how it seems to be moving inevitably toward... well, maybe the only thing that's inevitable is the future. We'll see how it works out.

I'm excited that we'll see the first black American president in three months, and I'm apprehensive and hopeful both about the way the world is moving. Peace talks seem to be replacing bombs in some areas of the Middle East; and on the streets of Afghanistan, women still can't show their faces.

Paradox.
It's at the center where we'll find the truth.

Until next time....

Speaking of Politics...

2007-07-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

July 20, 2007

I try to speak of the mess the world is in, and I come up speechless. Or really, word-less. Unable to find words with which to talk about what I see and hear and feel and fear.

My work has taught me, if nothing else, that what we don’t know is far deeper, richer, more than what we do. I do know that any situation—from the nuclear power situation in Iran to suicide bombers in Iraq, from the battle for the hearts and minds of Palestinians that Hamas and Fatah are engaged in to the release of prisoners from Israeli prisons (a nation that has adamantly stated they will not negotiate with terrorists), from why the U.S. seemingly stopped hunting bin Laden in Afghanistan and attacked, instead, a sovereign country with no direct provocation, to the seeming senselessness of those who believe that the U.S.’s project to inoculate children against polio is really a ploy by the U.S. to sterilize their young people—contains far more elements than we can learn from any, or even all, media outlets.

Still I try to get my information from sites I consider least biased, and I cross-reference both wording and “facts” with sites as far to one side or the other that I can find, from the countries I am most interested in, to try to find some kind of neutral balance. The best I think I do is stay informed that my information is shifted in any number of directions, and hope that somewhere in the midst of the chaff, the truth will rise.

I feel often as though I am in a sea of ignorance, and I try to navigate through to some kind of clarity with new books, new websites, more information from more, new, (un)biased sources. I read and I watch and I hope, and I am often in despair.

I can’t tell anymore whether the world is spiraling downward in some kind of tailspin from which it hasn’t a chance of recovering, or if my focus on finding out as much as possible about the on-going, endless, ageless battle in the part of the world we call the Middle East is taking its toll on both my heart and my perspective.

Occasionally I talk to someone who doesn’t watch the news anymore, another who hasn’t read anything about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in months or years, others who don’t know the elections in Turkey could shift the balance of power toward or against a more religious leadership, and who wouldn’t care even if they knew... and I wonder, is it them or is it me who live in darkness.

My darkness isn’t one of ignorance but of knowing just enough to know that I know virtually nothing about the final outcome of any of the struggles that plague the world today. Yet when I think about it I realize they have plagued the world for 2000...5000… 10,000 years, and the only difference today is that I am living in this world and am aware.

Maybe the way out of this darkness is to stop looking for the truth.

Maybe there is no truth. Or maybe the truth speaks only to those who do not seek it.

I wonder if I can stand the silence.

Answering Fareed

2007-02-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

If all goes well, this blog will be updated each week a few days after I receive and process my Newsweek Magazine. I have been reading and watching Fareed Zakaria since I read his book The Future of Democracy. I think he's brilliant, and he more than anyone has been fueling my ever-growing interest (my friends call it an obsession) with politics around the globe. I will attempt to address ideas/concepts he discusses in his editorials, and I welcome others' comments as well.

And this won't only be about those issues/events.

My fascination with the world political scene started before I found his book. And my interest - though it covers politics and political systems in general - is centered in what we call the Middle East, and in Russia. Therefore most of what is posted here will involve events and situations in those areas, as well as inevitably addressing how the U.S. and its policies are affecting the world.

More of my writings on various subjects can be found here http://tlc-travels.blogspot.com/ (travels through Italy) and here http://tlc-home.blogspot.com/ (mostly holdovers from my travels, thoughts on Globalization and other subjects).

And my business website is http://www.inkwell-inc.biz/ for anyone who'd like to see more of what I do.

Talk to you all in mere days, when I get through this week's Newsweek!

Teresa

PS -- Oh, and about the dance part. I have done Middle Eastern dancing for many years. Give me a drummer and a small space to move, and I'm content. Since my political interest and my dance interest meet in the same place, I will often comment on the dance and music coming out of the Middle East as well.