BeyondLabels

An article I picked up from the Futurist magazine is fascinating. It discussed how the west can learn from developing countries with regards understanding different cultures or some people use the term intercultural understanding. It also shows that the issues of cultures were discussed greatly at the time. the world major problems such as poverty, war and hunger are inherent in the current system of world order based on nation-states and economic competition.
The authors believed that these can be solved if people know and understand one another on a global, grass-roots basis. I couldn't agree more with the author. We are still seeing these problems in this modern world and little has been done to improve the situations globally. We must strive to appreciate and understand other cultures so that we can understand and reform our own culture and use these understanding to help us with a platform from which we can see ourselves.
These concepts of culture understanding could open new vistas for all of us. The authors were astonished with the community cooperation in one of thee visit in the pacific. In Fiji, the villages’ still harvesting, drying and exporting sea cucumber to Japan and all the earnings went to the village elders for community project. This shows that collaboration rather than competition makes more available to everyone.
The authors also discussed the option for our future. "The idea that land is something that can be owned by an individual is almost unique to Western culture". For example, the Australian aborigines have no concept of land ownership. they are owned by the land. The land is also a holy place and the spirits of their ancestors.
We have the opportunity to design our own future and we must find a way to escape the norm and biases that inherent in our current culture and open our eyes to the options for a more positive future.

http://www.malaynet.org/central/radio.php

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals what is deep inside of us as valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can rick curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit." (e. e. cummings, 1923/1976)

The above quote is the main discussion in an article by Nancy.P. Gallavan & A.Maria. Whittemore that I found very fascinating and deeply involved. It uses the narrative dialogue in its approach and it gave us a deeper understanding of the situation.

The article "When Parallel Lives Intersect: Experiencing Multiple Perspectives in Our Own Journeys" is based on two lives (personal experiences of the two author in the article) of completely different people and how they have openly talked about their own experienced. It highlighted the above quote very deeply and it was quiet emotional for me when I read the article.

Maria is a black female growing in the 50's and she explained how difficult and challenging it was at time being black and female. How she was the youngest of six and lived near the railroad tracks on the far end of town. The house she was living with her family was burnt-out machine shop with no bathroom and her family was the only black family in the community. Her and her siblings had to go to a segregated school which was 8 miles away. Maria was top achieve in the school and when she finally accepted in the white school, she was going through difficult times with other white children who making fun of her but luckily her white teacher see beyond her colour and gave her all the help she needed......

Nancy was too growing in the 50's and was the only white girl who lived in the house with her family who hired the black domestic. Her father was the owner of the local feed mile who hired black laborers and her mother gave her hand-me-down clothing to the black domestics family. Her parents also donated money and many other furnishing to the black families. Her parents also helped the black children to attend college. Nancy always wondered why the black children were not allowed to the while school and...

This article concluded with discussion and gone back to the quote above that we have to accept the person as he/she is and must look deeper and NOT discriminates. For Maris, her life story empowers her to see DIVERSITY as a STRENGHT and not deficits and to model this belief to everyone around her. Same with Nancy, her heart and head were reopened to many bias and social injustice inequalities she experienced in her childhood and how these now clearly apparent to her many years later as a professor of cultural diversity.

Just came across the powerful image and thought provoking poem by Meena. She was dedicate to the struggle of Afgan muslim women andhuman rights . The poster below is by an north American artist: Favianna Rodriguez Giannoni. Cool work with emotion and power ( http://www.favianna.com/ ).

I’LL NEVER RETURN
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children
I've arisen from the rivulets of my brother's blood
My nation's wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy
Oh compatriot, no longer regard me weak and incapable,
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with fists of thousands compatriots
To break all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery.
I'm the woman who has awoken,
I've found my path and will never return.
Poem by Meena (1956-1987)

Recent event in the north England. On going collaboration with EMCI. Always fun and amazing theatre education for children and powerful message below the fun.............. bridging learning styles and theatre/performance loads of potential and needs more exploration 

Inspiring stuff. Insight into wide range of issues that me, Aishah and little Liyana was at. Good catch all for whats happening internationally and priority issues for time. Also catching up with friends ..

Here's something I wanted to remember from a demonstration today in support of Lebanon. It was a demo outside BBC in Manchester linked with others around UK. Something I had not thought of was the shift in media from Gaza to Lebanon. The question is both need coverage and why not is this not so??? What is happening in Gaza while the attacks on Lebanon are takign place - the media needs to keep an eye and expose the situation in Gaza. This was followed by a demonstration in Albert Square. For those who know the place the banner below was wrapped on the monument !!

IRR journal Race & Class leads with an essay by Matt Carr who writes................ Seems to be a grrowing consensus on both sides of the Atlantic that is presenting Europe as a doomed continent that is being transformed into an Islamic colony called 'Eurabia'. Writer and journalist Matt Carr takes the reader  through the writings of conservative historians and newspaper columnists, right-wing Zionists and European neo-fascists, who find common cause in the dangerous Islamophobic fantasy that 'Judeo-Christian' civilisation is under threat from Muslim immigrants. Hey whats this 'one world order' thing we are being pushed......