The Project of the West

Hanif Kureishi, "a writer that appreciates irony and can look at such a serious debate with humour" as Trevor Wilson, who is presently working on "Jihadist Islam to Islamic Revivalism", wrote to me from Melbourne, was recently (on 8 August 2008) portrayed in the New York Times. Trevor is right, here are two examples:

"The project of the West, the Nietzschean project, has been to drive out religion and to produce a secular society in which men and women make their own values because morality is gone. Then suddenly radical religion returns from the Third World. How can you not laugh at that? How can you not find that a deep historical irony?”

“The antidote to Puritanism isn’t licentiousness, but the recognition of what goes on inside human beings.”

Helpful Approach

She said matter-of-factly: "I've made a million errors. When I came here everyone said you can't touch people on the head, you can't talk to a man, you can't do this, you can't do that, and I finally said, this is crazy! I can't be restricted like that! So I just threw it all out. Now I have only one rule. Before I do anything I ask, Is it okay? Because I'm an American woman and they don't expect me to act like a Hmong anyway, they usually give me plenty of leeway."
Anne Fadiman: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Space for Propaganda

"Aid group suspends Afghan operation after three women are killed in Taliban ambush" titled the online edition of The Guardian today a report by Jason Burke from Kabul. Here's an excerpt:

"Three western women working for an American aid organisation have been shot dead in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan. The women - a British-Canadian, a Canadian and a Trinidadian - were travelling by car in the eastern Logar province when they were attacked yesterday morning. One Afghan driver was also killed and another seriously injured.

The women worked for the New York-based International Rescue Committee, which has now suspended all its humanitarian aid programmes in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman, Zahibullah Mujahed, claimed responsibility, telling the Associated Press news agency that the insurgents had targeted "the foreign invader forces".

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, described the attack as unforgivable. "It is not in our culture to kill women," he said in a statement. "This unforgivable incident without doubt was carried out by enemies of Afghanistan, by non-Afghans.""

Should Mr Karzai's choice of words imply that other cultures find killing women acceptable? Moreover, why distinguish, when it comes to killing, between men and women at all? Or between civilians and soldiers, children and the elderly? Victims are victims, whether they are wearing uniform or civilian clothes, whether they are men or women, young or old. Whenever I hear that an attack claimed "innocent victims" I can't help wondering whether there is such a thing as a "guilty victim" and if so, whether the killing would be then okay ...

Likewise unhelpful (if the goal is to avoid killing) is to say that the killers were "without doubt ... non-Afghans" since the Taliban (aren't they mostly Afghans?) claimed responsibilty. I know, I know, one shouldn't take the words of politicians too seriously ... but publishing such statements without questioning them is not journalism, it is offering space for propaganda.

Fear of Pictures

"4,000 U.S. Deaths, and a Handful of Images", read the title of a recent article in the New York Times (27 July 2008) about the censorship of photographs of dead American soldiers in Iraq. Here's an excerpt:

"If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.

It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.

While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.

But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans."

Looks like a complex issue, doesn't it? So what is there to do? "Simplicity is the only thing that works in a complex world", says Carne Ross, a former British diplomat. Well then, plain and simple: War means to kill and to get killed. To show war like it is includes showing pictures of the ones who got killed. Without restrictions.

That the people in charge of the U.S. army do not want pictures of dead American soldiers being displayed is hardly a surprise for they know that what we will remember are images. And, since images are likely to set free emotions, that spells danger - for these emotions are beyond the reach of the military.

The issue is not complex, the issue is simple: Whoever will see what war is really like will not support it.

Intercultural Coaching

Why don't you offer intercultural coaching as an additional service? I asked Cristina, the owner of the "Instituto Intercultural" in Mendoza, Argentina, where, some time ago, I happened to work. What exactly do you mean by intercultural coaching? she wanted to know. Well, I tell my clients - anybody who is interested in foreign cultures - what they should do when being confronted with cultures that are different from the ones they are used to. That is impossible, Cristina said, you can't tell people what to do, you need to listen to them. Besides, they have to find out themselves what is good for them. Of course, I responded, but that is easier if they have some sort of orientation pole. I do not expect them to do what I tell them to do (they won't do it anyway), my goal is to confront them with what I deem useful observations in regards to cultural conditionings. Or with the mistakes that I have made. And, I tell you, they listen. Especially, when I'm talking about my mistakes - then they really pay attention for what they do not want is to make mistakes. Particularly not my stupid ones. Cristina was not convinced. And, as far as the acquisition of clients goes, she was most probably right. Well, what people want is one thing, what they need often quite another.

Movies in Santa Cruz

When I asked a teenager during class (while teaching English in Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil) when she had last seen a movie, she said: Today. It was early afternoon and I must have looked incredulous for she quickly added: Not in the cinema, in school. In what class do you watch movies? I inquired. Physical education, she said. Really? A movie about what? Sports, she said. And how was it? I don't remember, I fell asleep, she smiled.

A young adult student, when asked what her favourite movie was, said: "O massacre da serra elétrica" ('the chainsaw massacre'). Her classmates roared with laughter. When, a few days later, another student was teasing the young woman by mentioning the chainsaw massacre movie, she smiled and turned to me: "Do you know what his favourite movie is?" And, when I did not volunteer an answer, added: "A volta dos que nunca foram." (The return of the ones who have never been)..

No Pictures, please -- we're KIA

Every now and then I read somewhere that we are living in a world dominated by pictures. And that we are getting drowned in them. Well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it? I'm however not too sure what that means except that it seems to somehow insinuate that there are too many images around. Are there? No idea, really. But let's assume there were too many: Should we get rid of some? And if so, which are the ones that should disappear? And, who would decide that? Well, I guess we're better off to assume that there aren't too many images around. Besides, and this brings me to the point I want to make here, despite the abundance of photographs surrounding us, there are still far too many we do not get to see. That, come to think of it, is actually the only problem I have with the quantities of pictures around, namely, that they seem to suggest that we can see all the pictures that we want to see. That however isn't the way things are. An example is the present US government's "attempt to hide from public view the returning war dead", as Dana Milbank in the Washington Post (10 July 2008) pointed out. The article was emailed to me here in Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil (praised be the modern means of communication!) by Vietnam vet Jim Michener from Vientiane, Laos with the subject line "No Pictures, please -- we're KIA!" Just in case: KIA stands for Killed In Action. Here's an excerpt:

"When Gina Gray took over as the public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery about three months ago, she discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead -- even after the fallen warriors' families granted permission for the coverage. She said that the new restrictions were wrong and that Army regulations didn't call for such limitations. Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her."