Bones: one wonders...

Last night's episode of Bones raised a few questions. Near Seattle in the woods a piece of an arm is found and thus Bones and Booth go and investigate. They meet the Native American Forest Ranger, called Sherman. After General Sherman? After the tank named after the aforementioned general? After the best known wonderful poet and prose writer Sherman Alexie who lives in Seattle and hails from the Spokane Reservation... and is part of a milti-lingual project 'Harbors of the West' third part of the trilogy 'Sounds of Harbor'. Of course the ranger is immediately the prime suspect. It turns out there are marks on an arm that was found pointing to cannibalism. A dash of witchcraft is added to the mix of the script for good measure. When the ranger sees the FBI agent and his special expert 'Bones', he runs away. When caught and asked for the reason his reply is: "I don't want to be another Leonard Peltier. FBI and Indians don't mix well. Remember Wounded Knee?" Of course the ranger didn't kill anyone, nor eat anyone besides a black bear whose meat is in his deep freezer; a felony for which he is immediately handcuffed and put in jail. The series wouldn't be called 'Bones' if remains of victims weren't a full part of the script: thus a hand and more human bones are found in a killed bear. The interesting thing is that in different parts of the USA, e.g. in the Appalachian mountains a few years ago the remains of a young girl were found dating back to the 16th century, a girl who had been cannibalized, probably during a big famine. So I wonder: Are the contemporary Hollywood scripts based on a lot of research or are they kind of inside jokes and chuckles for the in crowd.

Of course we know that many Hollywood actors have been staunch supporters of Native American causes and especially of Leonard Peltier. May he be freed.

German TV: June 12.

The KKK

You have all heard about Selma, Alabama as a city where Dr. Martin Luther King fought for civil rights. Selma was the launching point for pivotal protests that hurtled the voting rights movement into the national spotlight. It is also a city of tragedy: thousands of students, religious leaders, my late husband and families fighting for civil rights in Selma were arrested, injured, or brutally killed.

I quote the text from Change.org : "I grew up in Selma. Now, as a community organizer, I think often about the sacrifices of the people who lived here before me. I was outraged and ashamed to learn that Selma's city council is sitting idly by as a local neo-Confederate group expands a public monument to a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Monuments celebrating violent racism and intolerance have no place in this country, let alone in a city like Selma, where the families of those attacked by the Klan still live.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate military leader, a founding member of the KKK, and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. He wasn't even from Selma -- why should Selma be honoring his shameful legacy of racial segregation and terrorism?

If Selma wants be viewed by the rest of the country as forward-thinking, we cannot give in to those who pine for the "good ole days" of the 1860s. This monument has blighted our town for far too long. Please join me in calling on the Selma city council to remove the monument celebrating Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Petition Letter

Dear Selma City Council,

I am writing to strongly urge you to stop the current plans to expand a monument celebrating Nathan Bedford Forrest.

People know Selma, Alabama as the city where Dr. King fought for civil rights. Selma was the launching point for historical protests that hurtled the civil rights movement into the national spotlight. It is also a city of tragedy: thousands of students, religious leaders, and families fighting for civil rights in Selma were arrested, injured, or brutally killed.

It was shocking to learn that Selma would ever choose to celebrate the legacy of a Ku Klux Klan founder and Grand Wizard by allowing a monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest to stand on city property. For the council to allow this monument to be expanded would simply be beyond the pale.

If Selma wants be viewed by the rest of the country as forward-thinking, we cannot give in to those who pine for the "good ole days" of the 1860s. The Selma city council has no business allowing the the city's history and the memory of those who fought for civil rights to be smeared in this way. I demand that you stop the expansion of the Nathan Bedford Forrest monument and remove it from public property.

Living on the edge of the Jewish quarter

Living on the inner edge of the Jewish quarter I have a choice when  I go shopping: to the right or straight ahead I'll see the people in their diverse religious attire. Fedora like hats on top of the head, white shirt all in black with the curls along the ears flying while cycling on the boardwalk. Yarmulke's and the fringe of their ceremonial scarfs peeping out from under the coat, while some where long white stockings and large fur hats, which when it rains are covered in a specially designed plastic bag. The women I saw this morning wore all a different color of wig: black or blond, light or dark brown. All wore comfortable flat shoes. The difference between richer and poorer Jews is immediately visible. The poorer women can't afford a good wig, so they wear scarves, either hiding all their hair or a scarf with an attached fringe of hair sticking out.
Since there are also a lot of Polish Jews there are also some good polish shops where you find kefir, other wise only found in the health shop or in the Pakistan shop. I also notice that some peope go to synagogue each morning and on special occasions they'll have palm leaves wrapped in plastic under their arm.

Going left however, I enter the general mainly European stream of peoples, with North Africans and black Africans being part of the mix just as Turkish and oriental people. A friend once called me on the fact that when one is at a local police station and does not speak the local language that one has to bring an interpreter. She was totally offended by this and thought the city should have the interpreters on call. So I got curious and asked how many languages were present in the small old jail, where people who have been picked up wait for their first meeting with the judge. The answer was a to me staggering amount of 76 languages. So the menu is from kosher to halal, from bio dynamic to straightforward meat, potatoes and veggies... All in walking distance. Wonderful.
What I don't understand is that the protests against the scarfs Muslim women wear and the acceptance of the same principle in a different execution in the Jewish community. In both cases the hair of women is supposed to for private viewing only.

ANC: 100 years

Today 100 years ago the African National Congress saw the light. Today the festivities take place for 100 years of selfless struggle. As an interpreter I have been once or twice the voice of Nelson Mandela after he was released from Robben Island. When South Africa was freed from Apartheid, it became member of the ACP and had at their first attendance the meeting in Cape Town and were given a most moving and enlightening tour of Robben Island by a former prisoner who became a minister in the first Mandela government. It was non-violence which won freedom. was one of his messages and that the embargo gave support to the resistance because even when suffering they knew it was  because people supported their struggle. At the opening of the ACP Meeting the African Anthem was played, well known by all who had worked for the abolishment of Apartheid and this is what I saw:

Sikeleli Africa

At the first notes

just two white people jumped up

one with his left fist in the air

she with her hand on

her heart

All peoples standing

the light skinned

rose

a few notes later –

The huge hall filled with

respect

I like to think

the white people were

slow

not recognizing the music in their

soul

or just older and stiffer and

slower

I like to think

Nkosi Sikeleli Africa

is the hope that touches us

all -           

 

Breda

PVV photo:
© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2011
Pre-election Breda gave two pictures that give hope: The PVV flyer thrown away in disgust by a citizen who obviously doesn't agree with the 'gedoogbeleid'.  This extreme anti -immigrant and anti-Islam party 'tolerates' the present government in Holland, a government which doesn't have a majority and needs that party on board for all legislative initiatives. It is a situation the extreme right wing factions of Dutch society just love. The other poster is guide about the points of view about the current  'gedoogbeleid' concerning soft drugs. In recognized coffee shops each person above 18 years old can buy in all safety 5 grams of weed or hash. Also in the USA the discussion about legalization of soft drugs is no longer inadmissible.

Book burning and censorship

Appalled at what is happening in my country, I want to reiterate that freedom of expression is absolute especially when we don't agree with what is being said

Here follows the letter of PEN President John Ralston Saul:
In response to the threatened burning of copies of the Koran in the United States on September 11, 2010, the president of International PEN, John Ralston Saul, has issued the following statement:

There is only one religion of book burning. Whatever the book—a text from any religion, a novel, a philosophical treatise, a poem—those who cast it into the flames stand arm-in-arm with Goebbels on a square in Berlin worshipping at the altar of hatred. Such hatred can always invoke as justification some earlier offence, real or imagined. The specific acts of individuals are then distended into a revengeful condemnation of whole cultures or religions or peoples.

PEN stands for unlimited freedom of expression. But we also believe in restraint, not as self-censorship but as the expression of that true complexity of human relationships which great literature invokes. We pledge to do our utmost to "dispel race, class and national hatreds." And the burning of books is a profoundly contemptuous display of hatred.

We believe that the destiny of literature is to bring people together. The broad condemnation by Americans and people around the world of the threat to burn religious books is a reminder that the role of freedom of expression is not to divide, but to unite people.

Creativity and politics

The Minneapolis-based retailer Target just gave over $150,000 to buy ads supporting state Rep. Tom Emmer, a far-right and anti gay Republican candidate for governor. This makes Target one of the very first companies to take advantage of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowing unlimited corporate cash in elections.

Target must think customers won't care. They're wrong: We do care, and we need to let them know that we want Target -- and all corporations -- out of our elections. Can you join me in sending a message to Target's CEO at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/state/target/?r_by=22714-6437728-OdpJe_x&rc=paste

Gran Torino

Since 'Unforgiven' I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood, not withstanding his stand on the Iraq war. Although in 'Gran Torino' he and the two young Chinese/American actors do a wonderful job, the real protagonist in this movie is language. From the rude and angry to the rude and jovial to tenderness, the whole range of emotions is expressed by scores of racial slurs and other epithets. The strength of the movie is showing the code switching and and through that expressing the growth of the characters. In my desert hide-away the guys in the bar definitely talk like Walt. In private some talk like that but then it sometimes takes on a different meaning, rolling their eyes and saying: oh you're such a feminist, pacifist, liberal... I'll have to stop talking to you. In 'Unforgiven' I loved the scene where the protagonist, bathes and shaves, puts on clean clothes before going on a killing spree to settle old scores. Here Eastwood reenacts a similar clean up scene with confession, close shave, new clothes and all and works out a interesting non-violent path for himself. He never cleans up his language nor outward attitude, but by now he knows something about life and death... He also has learned as a Korean War Vet about the results of conflicts years later... Is the language offensive? Yes. Does it convey the change in attitude in the main characters? Yes. Is it funny? Moving? Yes and Yes. Does it teach about the weight of killing and how not to go about conflict resolution? Sure... I had to think of Lenny Bruce who during a performance used all the racial slurs asking 'Are there any niggers in the here tonight? Spics? Wops, Polaks...' and all the others and then goes on to explain: 'The suppression of the word gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness...'

Icons

My laptop was out for a few days. I had a lot to write about but it won't happen now. I just want to write about November 10 when two people whose work was with me during the course of my life passed away: Miriam Makeba and Wannes Van de Velde. Wannes was a singer songwriter, painter, writer, flamenco player, a good person, a thinker, a joyful man who loved the city where I live. He also carried anger for what the authorities did to our city. Her personified the spirit of rebelliousness in a kind way to me. Miriam Makeba was the icon of the anti-apartheid struggle. Ages ago, in order that my daughter's father wouldn't have to do his military service, we wanted to emigrate to South Africa, since we knew some people working with the ANC. We dutifully filled out all papers and got as a reply: No thank you, you are not welcome since we don't think you could adapt to the system in place. Actually I should have kept that letter because that was a badge of honor. Miriam Makeba showed the way of non-violent resistance to a hateful regime. Both brought thoughtfulness, joy, resolve and beauty to my life.

60 years of Universal declaration of human rights

This 60 year old Universal declaration of human rights "has become the yardstick by which we measure respect for what we know,, or should know, as right and wrong". Ban Ki-moon.



A New York artist staged this procession to commemorate this anniversary. Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in promoting the original idea.



And yes torture is unacceptable.











Wherever and whenever, for whatever reason.

The new camp

Here life is squeaky clean. The Rom gypsies are healthier, their feet are dry, the kids have a table and light and can do their homework.



There are house searches at night between 2 and 3. The kids wake up, are scared and cranky.



When asked whether they were happy the women acknowledged their better conditions but said they were like 'birds in a cage'. At midnight the gate is closed, if they need to go out early the have to ring and will be let out.



Cameras are every where. What is the balance between clean and free?

Shadows of the Pomegranate tree

For the longest times I thought Tariq Ali only wrote non-fiction: Letter to a young Muslim, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and many others. Then I learned he also wrote the ‘Islam Quintet’. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is the first novel of this series. It starts with the bookburning in Granada, by the intolerant Catholicism under Queen Isabella of Spain. Two million manuscripts were burned in one night. A wall of fire engulfed the scientific knowledge and the beauty of the Arab writings with had initiated the end of the dark uncivilized middle ages in Europe. The aftermath of this event is told here as a family saga while their world collapses around them. The instinctive decency, dignity, moral vigor and courage, the theological and intellectual discussion, give us thought for food. The recipes and ingredients used by the family cooks are a nice touch just as the songs and poetry. Since Tariq Ali knows his history, he is free to weave the storyline around the actual happenings of that time.
- If we had used our iron fists to deal with Christianity the way you treat us now, the situation might never have arisen.
Spoken like the owl of Minerva. Instead you attempted to bring civilization to the whole peninsula regardless of faith and creed.
- There were apparent meaning and hidden meanings…. Allegorical interpretations were a necessary corollary to the truth.
- The heat and cold that remains in our body is never constant.
In the epilogue we meet the Captain who executed the killing of a whole village in South America eying the riches of Montezuma: ‘Much wealth went into its construction’. ‘ they are a very rich nation, Captain Cortez, came the reply…
And thus we are reminded that the carnage and pillage was about greed and we know what Cortez did with the rest of his life.
For this book Tariq Ali won an important literary prize in Spain as best foreign novel in 1994. I'll be ordering number two of the quintet.

The surrender

The dutch title is De Overgave by Arthur Japin, as far as I know the novel is not yet translated.
The story starts when a group of Comanche Indians raids the fort of Family Parker. It is Granny who tells the story: children and grandchildren are abducted or killed. Some she finds, but they are lost anyway because of having grown op in Comanche culture, or because of what they suffered. Finally her grandson finds her: Quanah Parker. The story is about the search and hope and love that never stops, nor diminishes. It is also about hate and racisms.
Obama Barrack’s speech about race made me think again about the book. Also Obama’s white grandmother had hate and racism in her and yet she accepted him… and thus he accepts her. Racism is a historic fact. I knew an old saddle maker, George Parker related to Quanah Parker and wonder whether one day we’ll really know what we are and who we are. In the wave structure of matter we are all matter and all equal. Some of us are more fun to be with than others, but that is just a matter of taste or bad taste, whatever the case may be. Maybe the question is will we ever know that we are.

Machetes

Old machetes are everywhere: in young boy's hands, in old men's hands, in women's hands. The French and Chinese machetes where issued during the events because they were cheaper to use than rifles and guns for which one needs bullets. And 'who wants to spend a bulled on a cockroach?' the saying went. So the shock of seeing a machete made me wonder, did this one kill. Who's hand wielded it. Who responded to the prejudice and hate spewed by radio Mille Collines. Was the machete used in hate, in protection? What did the guy who just passed me do and does he love his children? Is he a strict father? I saw a women standing in her front door, holding the machete in front of her and squarely looking at the people in the cavalcade of official looking buses. How to read such an image... Was she saying you didn't do anything when we needed protection or why didn't you stop us before we all became killers and killed. Every one has been touched by the 100 days that started on April 7, 1994.

Lets teach tolerance, stop prejudice at its earliest beginning and lets talk and listen to each other. Ahimsa: let's not harm life. Let's not turn tools into weapons.

Genocide

'One Life', was the event a friend and I attended in the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. The introduction made by the British NGO working for the prevention of genocide, Aegis Trust - meaning protection - was exemplary: using the local drama to show the working of intolerance in the world. It always starts with words and ideas and once it starts, genocide respects no one. It kills those who cannot fight back. How can one be sheltered From the prejudice of racism. Ives was little, just 5 years old. He should be 18 today, but there was nobody to protect him. And then all the broken lives of the survivors, raped, maimed, lost everything. Michel then 15, now 28, spoke about what happened to him: He lost 20 family members, couldn't bury his mother, the dogs ate part of her... He and two young sisters survived the events that started April 7, 1994. Now he feels he needs to testify. He studies sociology, works for the memorial and helps his sisters... After his sober words 'Sometime in April' a film by Raoul Peck was shown. Bone chilling, amazing, also in the little gestures of kindness that leaves one a bit of hope. What always starts all this killing everywhere is greed, arrogance and power and stupidity. Afterwards I was raw, filled, empty, overflowing and found myself in the dark tropical night on one of the thousand hills. Any mechanical repetitive sound flashed back to gunfire... The taxi driver was untypically silent with vacant eyes. We cannot imagine, never know what survivors go through. Yet we should not forget, we are all children of survivors, we are all survivors... So lets be gentle with each other...

Chrystos

Chrystos is a poet, artist, activist born in San Fransisco, California November 7, 1946. She is of mixed origin: her mother was Lithuanian/Alsatian, her father of Menominee ancestry. She identifies with her father's heritage and refers to herself as an urban Indian. The political aspect is dominant in her writing. Native land rights & treaty rights, racism towards Native peoples, are but one aspect she writes about. Another subject is domestic violence – she writes about her mother’s depressions and the abuse she herself suffered as a child by her mother. Abuse being one of the reasons to reject her mother's side of her heritage. So she readily identifies with all victims of violence and lends them her voice.
Not Vanishing from 1988 is her first and very confrontational collection. In later work she has matured as a poet. An outed lesbian, she writes also very beautiful and moving love and erotic poems. In the summer of 2002 she was making a film about two spirited women ‘in order to make the lives of queer native peoples more visible’. Two spirited women is the general Native American word, two hearts is also used, although that leads to confusion in some nations where that term is deserved for the evil form of witchcraft.
From all the minorities in the USA the native peoples are most oppressed. A strong poetic voice like Chrystos is essential in those circumstances. Many of her poems are autobiographical, fiercely personal; some might call it testimonial. Her writing is however always strong and inclusive of all who have gone through the same suffering.
Remember the saying: we are all wounded at Wounded Knee? The poem refers to this.

In the scars of my knees you can see
children torn from their families
bludgeoned into government schools
You can see through the pins in my bones
That we are prisoners of a long war
My knee is so badly wounded no one will look at it
The pus of past oozes from every pore
This infection has gone on for at least 300 years
Our sacred beliefs have been made into pencils
names of cities gas stations
My knee is wounded so badly that I limp constantly
Anger is my crutch I hold myself upright with it
My knee is wounded
See
How I Am Still Walking

Questions

A Jewish friend of mine wanted to talk about whether a museum dedicated to the holocaust in Belgium the Dossin Kazerne in Mechelen, could be transformed without taking away from the Jewish suffering in that place, into a Museum to teach about genocide. I have visited the wretched place, which was a Sammellager, where people, almost 25.000 Jews and about 350 Gypsies, were brought together to be deportated to the concentration camps. Two thirds were gassed upon arrival. That should never be forgotten. The Museum is really impressive and moving. I see the value of teaching the causes for genocide, but when a place has been instrumental in one specific, well documented atrocity then we should take that concrete place and it’s events as the example, the didactic instrument to teach how to avoid later genocides like in Rwanda, the former republic of Yugoslavia and so on, because obviously such loss of life should be avoided, made impossible. All conflicts need to find a peaceful, non- violent and fair resolution.
There is a clear demarcation line between not believing that the State of Israel is acting right and being an anti-Semite. We should have the right, from an honest point of view, to question and criticize what seems wrong or disproportionate. The other question she asks is whether ‘Antwerp Jews’, a rather large and pretty influential group in the diamond city that Antwerp is, are Jews or Flemish or Belgians. Living in a state one becomes a citizen of that state, whatever the genealogy… Of course there are different cultural groups, all quite distinctive: Moroccans, Italians who constitute the largest group of migrants in Belgium, Dutch, Turks, Jews, Armenians and even Americans… In the square mile I live at the last count there were 67 nationalities and I do like that. All these groups have a right to their own cultural, religious traditions, which are within the law of the land. So no female genital mutilations, no slaughtering of animals in one’s own house, equal rights for women and men… The latter is a mute point within all monotheistic religions.

White supremacists

In Kingman, Arizona, where Mc Veigh lived for a while and probably got his explosives, 2 white supremacists threatened and intimidated some neighbors. Upon the arrival of the cops, they proclaimed loudly, proudly that they were members of the Arian Brotherhood. They were taken into custody and one of the charges was membership of a criminal syndicate. The Arian Brotherhood has been heavily involved with the amphetamine trade in this area. And now one or two moved into my little desert town. A week or so ago a black man was in the bar, admittedly a rare occasion. He was articulate, good-looking and not really drunk. Some of the local toughies kept yelling “This guy doesn’t know he is black.”, “He doesn’t know he is a nigger.” So I am beginning to wonder how many Arian Brotherhood members or supporters are in town.
Among he motley crew of my friends you’ll find all colors, plenty of different religions or atheists. Most of these friends are tolerant except towards stupidity, racism, the search for power and $$, and recurrent violence. I have no patience for groupings who feel to be better than the rest, be it based on the lilywhiteness of their skin, the supremacy of their state or because they deem themselves to be the chosen people, or because only their god is the real god. All this is ugliness of the mind. Although child abuse, domestic violence, economic exploitation and dollar driven bloodthirsty war is part of the same constellation. May a black hole inhale these aberrations of the human mind. We are all related!

The visitor

A Vietnam vet, was Navy, special operations and a sniper, suffering from PTSS, and bicycle racer at national level –
Now a woman, 62 years old, stuck in pain, in body and soul. Not pathetic, but searching. The latest identity superimposed on all this, when finding out after her mom died, that she was Cherokee and finding the family name in the books – yet not quite looking the part because of a German father.
How does one integrate voice and attitude from one life segment to the next? Only in the bike racing, she was recognized an athlete in her before and after. She always knew she was a woman, not gay, but just a woman born in the wrong body. Where can she find acceptance, a companion, peace of mind and fulfillment? It is such a simple but hard to fulfill wish since no groups seem to accept her for all she is. Only there where society is not judgmental but welcoming all differences will she be home.

Colorblindness doesn't help

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races. The Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief. Actually racism is a system that sanctions a specific brand of group privilege. The concept of race, is scientifically flawed since no trait is genetically linked to one single group. In modern society race was accepted as the root of social inequalities and thus as 'natural' by the economically or military dominating group. By withholding for instance education to one group and fostering this in another the social precondition for inequality is created. Wealth, opportunity and status then flow to the dominant group, not out of merit, or hard work. In India it goes to the Brahman's caste, in the Western world to white males… Not because these groups are innately better, but because of the fundamental inequality of generations underlying our present society. Treating everybody as equal today is actually not sufficient, colorblindness does not solve the problem of racism, poverty and inequality in our society. It is our society which needs to become just and equitable, with equal chances for all and extra stimulation for those who need it.