An eloquent rant

OK so I'm being cheap these days by not posting anything original...But there's still a purpose, I promise. The purpose here is to be relieved that some people out there are able to acknowledge and express concern for the negativity, suffering and global dislike that America has left in its wake for the past 7 years. It is crucial that we all understand that the role of the US as an empire - in every sense of the word - is where the roots of our current problems lay, and it only takes a lunatic like Bush to exploit them. This excerpt is from an article by James Carrol in the Boston Globe:

"Why should you not be demoralized and depressed? But the sorrow of war goes deeper than the mistaken policies of a stubborn president. Next to Bao Ninh's book on your shelf stands "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson. That title suggests how far into the bones of your nation the pins of the problem are sunk. In effect, the disastrous American War in Iraq is the text, while America's militarized way of being in the world is the context. Armed power at the service of US economic sway has made a putative enemy of a vast population around the globe, and that enemy's vangard are the terrorists. Violent opposition to the American agenda increases with each surge from Washington, whatever its character. Both text and context reveal that every dream of empire brings sorrow, obviously so to the victims of imperial violence, but also to the imperial dreamers, whether or not they consciously associate with what is being done in their name.

But the world sorrow implies more than grief and loss. The palpable sadness of a people reluctantly at war can push toward a fuller moral reckoning with the condition of a nation that has made its own economic supremacy an absolute value. To take on the question of an economy advanced with little regard for its sustainability, much less for justice, implies a move away from the focus on Bush's venality to a broader responsibolity. How do the sorrows of war and empire implicate you?

The simplest truth is that the economic system that so benefits you is steadily eroding democracy by transferring the power to shape the future, both within states and among them, to ever smaller elites. At the same time, wealth multiplies and conentrates itself, while impoverishing more and more human beings. Everything from US oil consumption, to global trade structures, to the iron law of cheap labor, to immigration policies, to the psychology of the gated community, to the gated idea of national sovereignty, to the distractioons of celebrity culture - all of this supports what is called the American way fo life. Yours. If finally seen to be the source of multiple sorrows at home and abroad, can this way of life prompt a depper confrontation with its true costs and consequences? You need nto reduce social ills to personal morality - or let Bush off the hook for his wholly owned war - to acknowledge the complicity attached to mere citizenship in a war-making, imperial nation. In that case, can you measure your sorrow against the word's other meaning, which is contrition?"

UK's mixed populations

I found this article on BBC and thought it was really interesting - the UK has one of the largest growing mixed populations in the world, and it examines the factors that contribute, especially with regards to women's choices in marriage, partners, etc. And they have had a "mixed" box on their census since 2001! :)

Changing Face of Britain: Britain's blurring ethnic mix By Cindi John Community affairs reporter

Lenny Henry and Dawn French

The United Kingdom has one of the fastest growing mixed-race populations in the world, fuelled by the continuing rise of inter-ethnic relationships. In spite of the recent racially-fuelled violence in several northern towns and cities, these days the evidence suggests that Britons of all shades are embracing each other more than ever before. Celebrities like comedians Lenny Henry and Dawn French, actor Michael Caine, newsreader Trevor McDonald, singer Sade and writer Salman Rushdie are, or have been, in mixed race relationships. The singer Shirley Bassey, Labour MP Oona King and writer Hanif Kureshi are high-profile examples of Britain�s burgeoning mixed race population. Data from the 2001 census due to be released later this year is expected to confirm that Britain has one of the highest rates in the world of inter-ethnic relationships and, consequently, mixed race people. By 1997 already half of black men and a third of black women in relationships had a white partner according to a major study of ethnic minorities published by the Policy Studies Institute (PSI). It also revealed that other inter-racial relationships were flourishing with a fifth of Asian men and 10% of Asian women opting for a white partner. But in spite of those findings, research carried out for BBC News Online revealed only a third of Britons think people in the UK are very tolerant of mixed race relationships. Professor Richard Berthoud of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University was one of the PSI report�s authors. He said their research had revealed a public fascination with the subject. "Part of the huge interest is based on the assumption that it wouldn�t happen - there�s an implicit assumption in British society that you marry somebody of the same colour as oneself. "But there are many people with black faces who just think of themselves as English and see no reason why they should not form a partnership with a white person," Professor Berthoud said. Women�s motives In the past men have led the way in inter-racial relationships but according to writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, an Asian married to a white man, that situation is changing rapidly, especially among better-educated women. Ms Alibhai-Brown said: "I think in the case of African Caribbeans especially there are more middle class women than there are middle class men. "So what they want from life is very hard to find within their own communities because there has been quite extraordinary discrimination against black men who have not been allowed to progress through the system. "So for them it�s almost like a class reason." For Asian women there were more "feminist" motives, Ms Alibhai-Brown added. "Rightly or wrongly quite a lot of us believe that in order to fulfil our lives it just won�t be possible if we marry an Asian man who however egalitarian before marriage very often becomes extremely sexist afterwards." �Blurring� Whatever the reasons, the result of Britain�s high number of inter-ethnic relationships is a boom in the mixed race population - currently the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK. Figures published by the Office for National Statistics in 2001 revealed the number of mixed race people grew by more than 75% during the 1990s to around 415,000, 10% of the total ethnic minority population in the UK. Professor Richard Berthoud of Essex University said such growth was leading to the blurring of racial identities, especially among those of black Caribbean origin. "Our study showed around 40% of children with one black parent also had a white parent. "But those statistics only relate to children living with both parents and since a very large number of Caribbean mothers live without their partner we don�t know what ethnic group that partner comes from. "So it seems not unlikely that a large proportion of their children would fit into the mixed ethnic group," Professor Berthoud said. New racial category The census in 2001 was a milestone for people of mixed race in the UK � for the first time a "mixed" category was included among the racial groups. It followed a long campaign by those opposed to having to tick a box marked �other� . But researchers say though the existence of mixed race people may now be officially acknowledged in statistics, serious concerns remain. Yasmin Alibhai Brown, author of a recent book �Mixed Feelings� examining the issues facing children of mixed race, said one major worry was that many organisations and public bodies in Britain had adopted policies from the US. "The movement started there to claim all mixed race children as black - the argument was if they suffer racism nobody asks them if they�re mixed race. "But I think big mistakes were made to drive policy makers and practitioners into accepting this rather ludicrous concept because mixed race children aren�t black and they�re not white or brown � they are themselves," she said. Often mixed race children lived with white mothers who in many cases were the victims of racism from both whites and blacks, Ms Alibhai-Brown added. �Pressure� That was a point echoed by researcher Jill Olumide of London University. She said: "I think there is more pressure on mixed race couples further down the social order and on single mums with mixed race children. "They�re more likely to come to the attention of social workers particularly if there are other factors like extended family withdrawing support when there�s more likely to go wrong." As a white woman married to a Nigerian she had experienced family hostility to a mixed marriage at first hand, Ms Olumide added. "In particular the Nigerian family were concerned and against it really, didn�t want the marriage to happen or continue. "There�s also been name-calling and negative experiences but nothing that we couldn�t handle." But writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown believed in spite of the difficulties faced by some couples the trend of mixed race partnerships was likely to intensify. She said: "More and more black and Asian and Chinese people will be marrying whites and each other. There is no stopping this, it seems to me. "I hope it makes this country become more comfortable with its hybridity as a national characteristic."

Re: Cheetahs & Prism Magazine

Ok so I was just posting this as a comment to Sian's post below but it got too long.

The reason this got sooolong is because of the cheetahs (and also because I talk too much).

I dont know if you guys know this (Sian maybe they told you this when you saw them?) but cheetahs are amazing animals and are severely endangered - much more so than they are portrayed as being. Although there are current attempts to "save" the cheetah, many of these conservation efforts are helpless in the attempt to stop the main problem that is leading to the extinction of the cheetah - human incursion and urban expansion. The growth of urban areas and the constant incursion of humans into the cheetah's main habitat has led to widespread killings and poaching of cheetahs over the years. In addition and perhaps more importantly, human incursion has pushed all savanna species into a smaller and smaller area, leading to a decrease in wildlife numbers due to higher competition for food and water supply. This means that the cheetah's food sources are dying off/being killed by bigger and stronger predators, and that the cheetahs themselves are dying off due to this. As their physique suggests, cheetahs have evolved a "flight" versus "fight" behaviour, which is a recipe for disaster in an environment that is decreasing in size and increasing in its density of hungry cat predators, such as the lion and leopard. The massive decrease in the cheetah's habitat has also led to the single most crucial issue that is slowly ensuring their extinction - inbreeding. In smaller numbers, cheetahs that are forced into a smaller habitat tend to inbreed among family groups, and now virtually ALL non-captive cheetahs in africa are genetically related within their respective habitats. In Kenya, it has gotten so bad that all wild cheetahs in the region are twin brothers and sisters, reducing their gene pool significantly. Like all inbred species, the upsurge of inbred cheetahs - though it is an adaptation on part of the species to survive in harsh times - has led to lower breeding rates, genetic deformities and greater susceptibility to disease. Because the gene pool of the species is SO tiny, these amazing animals are constantly at risk of disease- related extinction. Moreover, the issue of inbreeding and genetics among cheetahs also means that they are less able to evolve and adapt as a species, which is a pressing issue due to climate change (yes - its affecting Africa pretty seriously), which has lead to widespread drought, drier and hotter conditions, and migratory changes (of cheetah prey) across Africa.

In 1900 there were over 100,000 cheetah across Africa and Asia. Today, the cheetah has become extinct in 20 countries because of the problems I just listed. The cheetah remains in only ONE country in Asia - Iran, where there are less than 100 left. The Asian cheetah was/is the only remaining genetic variation of the cheetah. It was declared extinct in India in the 1950s.

In Africa, there are 24 countries left where the cheetah resides, and the cheetah population has dropped to under 15,000. In only half of the 24 countries is there a genetically viable population of cheetahs, and only in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania do the cheetah exist in concentrated populations. To add to the problem, the issue of predator competition has made it extremely rare for cheetahs to thrive in protected wildlife preserves, and even less rare to raise a genetically viable cheetah population in these areas.

It would be a shame to lose this amazing species - they have survived on this planet for 3.5-4 million years before humans came in and cut down the cheetah population, leaving only 1-2% of the cheetah population to remain. It is the oldest of the "big cats", and may now be relegated to the pages of a history book if a cohesive effort is not made to provide a large amount of safe, fertile and prey-rich habitat for the cheetah to recuperate. It is possible to save the cheetah if awareness is raised and people across the world realize the huge, negative impact we are having on the earth's precious and fascinating species.



And the next post will be on climate change I think, because the cheetah's story is a microcosm of the effect that human induced climate change and environmental abuse (for which the west bears a heavy burden of responsibility) is having on Africa, and how these issues have a disproportionately large impact on its inhabitants (on humans and wildlife alike).

So read about cheetahs and donate to save them ( I did!), especially if you're lucky enough to see cheetah cubs. Let's hope it doesn't get to the point where you have to tell your kids about the extinct cheetah babies one day.

donate: http://www.cheetah.org/
http://www.cheetahbotswana.com/

I won't even get into talking about mountain gorillas. They're from rwanda and theres less than 400 left. And they're our relatives. SO save them too. http://www.igcp.org/

just submitted this to Princeton's Prism magazine...

There was a 5 rand admission charge to see the cheetahs. I told my aunt I didn’t have any cash, and she responded that nieces don’t need cash unless they’re on their own. The ticket lady immediately jumped in with a cheerful, “you don’t need money when you have an auntie! That’s what aunties are for!”

It was a relatively mundane exchange, I guess, but let me break down the dynamics of that interaction to show its significance and what it means to me. I’m studying abroad in South Africa and my (white, Irish) aunt is visiting me for the week. In South Africa I’m considered “coloured”, in the States I’ve been considered lots of things, but for the sake of simplicity I’ll just say I’m mixed. The woman who was selling tickets at the cheetah reserve was a coloured, or perhaps a lighter-skinned black, South African.

The quickness of her reaction and her immediate acceptance of the fact that I could have a white aunt is what took me by surprise, and upon further consideration I realized that it might have been the first time in my life that a stranger unquestioningly acknowledged that a white person could be related to me. That might sound weird, but I think it’s true. Growing up in the US nobody ever doubted that I was my mom’s daughter, she’s significantly darker than I am, but people say we look alike. On the other hand, nowadays when I go anywhere with my dad, people assume I’m his girlfriend or wife before they’ll believe I’m his daughter; it seems to be hard for people to understand that a white man could have a non-white daughter. It’s silly because people of different “races” have been mixing literally forever, but at least for the past 300 years, all over the world.

Being in South Africa is so cool for exactly that reason. There’s an entire “racial” identity called “coloured” for people who aren’t “black” or “white” and whose ancestors usually come from some combination of the Khoisan people of South Africa, Bantu-speaking Africans, White Afrikaaners with Dutch ancestry who colonized South Africa, British people who also colonized South Africa, Portuguese people who were another colonial power, Malay people who were brought to South Africa from Dutch colonies as slaves, and Indians and south Asians who were brought by the British as indentured servants. The idea of having a category for these people is unique to South Africa because of its history, but it’s also the only place I’ve been to that accepts mixedness or multiraciality as a legitimate identity.

While the South African system is by no means flawless, it feels so much nicer to have the complexities and nuances of your identity acknowledged, as opposed to the situation in the States where only now are people beginning to realize that it’s possible to have ancestors from lots of places and to identify racially and culturally with more than one group.

America: Media, Violence and Milgram

Ok so I was just typing away in my office and I heard a very loud conversation about the middle east going on outside. A guy was explaining to a woman that the middle east is not as homogenous (ethnically) as people make it out to be, and that there has recently been an increase in men "importing" women to marry because they have "run out" of women in their own countries. This is true and a complicated issue, but the woman's response was gross and I think it was ignorant and derogatory.

woman:"well isn't this just about dowries? I mean, dont all those arabs pay dowries for their women?"

guy: "well dowries generally make having a wife more expensive, but its something that is becoming less common in urban areas, so its not really relevant"

Woman: "No, but arent't the men marrying women outside their own countries because the women in poor countries are cheaper? Why don't the arabs just abolish the dowry system, anyway? Those people should just abolish it, its just silly"

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Ok so. This is not one of the most ignorant things I have heard, but it annoyed me anyways, and I would like to hear what you all have to say about it. It upset me for two reasons:

1) I don't like that there is a mentality in america that disrespects the cultural practices of other countries/societies by considering those practices to be dispensable and therefore seeing it okay to obliterate culture through regulation (as though dowries = a legal offense such as stealing). I also think that such an idea is neo-colonial in a way. By its nature, the notion of regulating, or "abolishing" certain cultural practices suggests that those practices are seen as being trivial, thus divorcing those practices from their cultural history (say like 1000 years worth of dowry-giving), or even worse, assuming that the cultural history itself is trivial.

The reason I attribute this to America is because I find that the "mixing pot" mentality that is required in order to become a legitimate member of American society requires the disposal of non-american cultural practices, or the relegation of such cultural practices to the shadows of American society. I'm sure the reasons for this is are complicated, but it annoys me anyhow and I think it leads to this weird dualistic view of america where in reality it is full of people form a gazillion countries and cultures but at the same time it is viewed by many as being a very culturally ignorant and even xenophobic society despite the plurality of its members.

2) I think the conversation is indicative of the effect that the "anti-terror" campaign, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Palestine-Israeli conflict and overall media coverage of the middle east "crisis" is having on the American public as a whole. This has led to the U.S. population being conditioned to have a disparaging and derogatory view of people from the middle east because they are depicted on a regular basis as being violent, abusive, quarrelous and threatening. Because of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people from these regions are also commonly depicted as victims and targets of violence, leading to a view of them as being helpless and inferior. I'm sure you guys have heard about the Milgram Experiment (the one where people shock other people), whose architect Stanley Milgram states: "the systematic devaluation of the victim provides a measure of psychological justification for brutal treatment of the victim and has been the constant accompaniment of massacres, pogroms and wars". Althought Milgram is referring to a more extreme example (Rwanda), his studies centre around the idea that the voice of an authority (i.e. media or government, in this case) that devalues a precific group of people on a regular basis will eventually lead to a view among thos who listen to that authority that those peoples lives - or culture, in this case - is also unimporant and expendable.

I think this is entirely true and it saddens me that the US's close relationship to military violence and a mentality of force vs. fear/terror in media and government has encouraged a generalistic and prejudiced view of specific people around the world as victims and enemies because they are considered acceptable targets of violence. My focus here isn't on bitching about americans, but its a genuine concern of mine that media and government policies genuinely affect the way that the populace thinks. (This post more about American society - not about individuals necessarily. I know its bad to generalize and I'm trying to refer to a phenomenon rather than coming across as suggesting that "all Americans do x, y, or z") And this happens all over the world, not just in the U.S.. That being said, there are sociology studies that show that obedience to authority in the U.S. is very high (like the ones done by Michael Adams, University of Toronto sociology professor and author of "Fire and Ice") which affects the influence of that authority on social mentalities and leads to the "Milgram effect". The only exception to this might be the US public's view of Israelis, as they are commonly depicted in the media as 'good guys'.

On a related note, an article from Common Dreams today describes a study by BBC and PIPA that surveyed random groups of people -28,000 ottal- in 27 countries on their view of 12 subject countries. Overwhelmingly, the most disliked countries were the U.S., Iran, and Israel, BUT, relating to my point above, the country polled that had the most positive view of Israel, second to Nigeria, was the USA.

The study links negative views to "countries whose profile is marked by the use or pursuit of military power" - though it doesn't talk about how the populations within those countries (the ones who use military power in such a strong way) view the countries against whom that power is directed, which would relate to the Milgram issue.

The reason all this bothers me is because national politics and the media that broadcasts those politics necessarily affect anthropological views - i.e. the views of people to people, leading to generalizations and bigotry in the way that the individuals in one population treat and view the individuals of another population. It's a trickle-down effect that is unsettling, to say the least and I don't like how it's closely tied to military action. Did I mention that the G8 nation with the smallest per-capita military, Canada, garnered one of the most favourable views (along with Japan) in the BBC/PIPA survey?

To read more on the Common Dreams article, go to: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0307-04.htm

To read more on the Milgram Experiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment (there's acutally a lot more about the implications of Milgrams experiment in wartime and for social prejudice. )

Read Ode

OK so I just posted a new link to Ode Magazine, which is by far my favourite magazine in the entire world right now, and I suggest that everyone go to the website and read some of their articles.

The magazine takes a critical, against-the-grain appraoch to world issues and focuses on encouraging sustainability, fair trade, peace-building and awareness on political and human rights issues all over the world. Essentially it focuses on making the world a better place and convincing people that making a positive impact isn't really that difficult and should be something that's a priority and that's meaningful to everyone. I LOVE it. It also writes really specifically from a position that views the world and it's communities from a shared perspective rather than an individualistic (and capitalist, grr) one. By looking at things that way it encourages readers to see people and issues (and themselves) as being interconnected and as such removes silly excuses for sitting back and doing nothing about things.

You all should love it too. AND if you subscribe they'll plant a tree for you. It's coolness at work, I tell you.