Simply stealing art of destroying national identity?

 

                                    http://www.randafricanart.com/Benin_hip_masks.html

    Is stealing art objects during the colonization of another country aims only for making the profit? Or does it also have a bigger political goal of ripping people off their history and cultural heritage so that they have nothing to hold on to when you will enslave and exploit them and their country? 

    Deutsche Welle documentary ‘Africa’s looted art’ raises this crucial question about the significance of the stolen by Europeans art and cultural objects for modern African people, especially the young generations. Even now, in the 21^st century, despite of the numerous calls and some attempts for the revision of the colonialist history and its socio-economic impact on the African continent, stolen cultural and historic heritage sitting in European museums (often not even displayed to the public) allows Europe to look down at Africa and provide euro-centric education, books, and to claim that African culture is only ‘tribal’ and ‘primitive’. 

    So, I can’t help but think that this campaign of getting as many valuable art and cultural objects as possible out of Africa and bringing them to Europe was a very well thought-through political action. First, you deny people their cultural heritage, anything that can link them to their land and their ancestors and make them proud of that link, you basically break their national pride. Secondly, you tell them that you know better, you are more civilized, more educated, more ‘cultural’, so they have to obey you and look at you with admiration trying to become like you. And finally, you rewrite their history teaching little kids that before you there was nothing but trees and monkeys. This is how you destroy the nation as a concept, and colonize not only land and people but also people’s minds.

Now, the next interesting discussion stirred up in the film is the possible remedy.

How should the repatriations be done? All at once at the political level? But many artifacts belonged to concrete families who are now claiming their right to heritage.

Will these ancient artifacts be sufficiently preserved back at home, especially in some countries that are still torn by war and poverty? After all, this is a world cultural heritage. But then, who is Europe to decide what happens to something that never belonged to it in the first place?

Is it enough to just return these art and cultural objects to remedy the damage done by colonization? Shouldn’t the priorities be repairing economic consequences or education? Well, maybe, it would be already a significant step forward if kids in African countries started learning about the history, crafts and traditions of their people and their country (which does not start from colonization) while looking at the real objects instead of pictures in the book and feeling the value and significance of these artifacts for their own identity.  

This is what I love about DW documentaries: they leave more questions in your head than answers.

To be or not to be: Does taking your job personally lead to a career success?

https://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/job-skills/workaholic

Let me be clear from the beginning – this post does not contain a definite respond to the question in its title. And neither is helpful any search in 'career advice/inspiration/I’ll-tell-you-how-to-live-your-life’ literature. There is a more or less equal number of articles providing practical ways of “how to stop taking your job personally” and explaining ”why ‘don’t take it personally’ is terrible work advice”. One side references all the burn-out and over-stressed consequences, together with inability to separate your work-self from your-self. The other side responds with million examples of successful people who stayed focused, creative and full of ideas because they were personally and emotionally invested in their work.

Indeed, the more I think of it, the more paradoxical it sounds. It is quite difficult to imagine how someone can quickly and successfully progress in a career without being highly motivated to do his/her job, looking for more tasks than required, or spending more time than required trying to come up with innovative and creative solutions. Does a worker who shuts his/her computer down exactly at 5 pm and does not even think about his/her work until the next day 9 am (hello, the perfect ‘work-life’ balance!) get a significant career success?

On the other hand, ‘my job is my life’ actually works well only in the circumstances of the private businesses or small start-ups with a high degree of flexibility and freedom where the aforementioned innovative and creative solutions are welcomed. It does not work so perfectly when a worker is a small pawn in the company with many more managers/bosses above him/her who do not share his/her creative or innovative views and who prefer him/her to simply follow the long-established rules and do what he/she is asked to do. It does not work so well in - let’s be honest – most of public companies/organisations where a ‘personally invested’ worker gets frustrated and tired of banging his/her head against a brick wall and yields to ‘it’s just a job that brings me money and social security’ mantra.      

Among many articles and books advising either one or another and not solving the paradox, I have found only one that actually seemed to come up with a compromise. The author points out that the key to career success is not how personally invested a worker is in his/her job: it is worker’s self-determination. It means that regardless if what job position it is and what type of company, a worker him/herself decides what to take from it and where to go with what he/she takes:

Career self-determination doesn't require you to start your own business. My friend Mike has been insanely successful in his career working for well-known employers. What makes Mike successful is that he decides what he wants to do next rather than letting the job ads or inertia decide for him. When one job has given Mike all it's got to give, he moves on. He doesn't really care what his boss thinks about his performance. He cares what impact he's making at work -- impact that he can talk about later, with other employers, when it's time to move on! […]

Mike is self-employed in his own mind, although he works for other people. He loves his career, has plenty of time off, gets paid very well and best of all, is healthy and happy. Mike is not a suck-up or someone who needs to get external approval to feel good about himself. He simply knows what kinds of Business Pain he solves for employers, and that knowledge makes him very valuable as well as content in his own skin.

 Liz Ryan Hard Work Won't Make You Successful -- But Doing This Will, Forbes

I guess the solution proposed here is this: in order to succeed in career, it is not necessary to take one’s own job personally, but it is essential to be personally and emotionally invested in one’s own career plan and vision. In short, the personal career plan is the determining factor of deciding where and how much to invest personally in the current job tasks. And if one or another job task doesn’t contribute to the career plan, why take it personally?

Useful (and not so much) resources: Duncan Coombe “Don’t Take It Personally” Is Terrible Work Advice, Harvard Business Review; How Liking Your Job Will Help You Succeed, University of Southern California, Online Master of Science in Applied Psychology; John Rampton 15 Behaviors Blocking Your Success; John Fawkes 10 things you must stop doing if you want to be successful, Medium; Becky Hagle 5 Things That Happen When You Take Your Job Too Seriously, Odyssey; Liz Ryan Hard Work Won't Make You Successful -- But Doing This Will, Forbes.

Living in more than one language – a blessing or a curse?

http://www.theswcsun.com/bilingualism-is-a-benefit-in-more-ways-than-one/

A couple of days ago, I’ve seen a very nicely explained summary of what I’ve learned in my linguistics classes back at the Moscow State University: our language reflects precisely the way we see the world and the way we think. The only problem I had with this TED talk was that many given great examples showed how the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of various languages is linked to our perception of the world (clear distinction of light and dark blue in Russian, everything measured by geographical position in some Australian tribe’s language, etc.), but did not give any proof to speaker’s main thesis – that it is also the other way around and our language shapes the way we think and see the world around. Personally, I am even more interested in the further question: when you learn a new language (and by ‘learn’ I mean you speak it quite fluently), does the reality in your head changes accordingly? Does the brain of a native English-speaking person who acquired a high proficiency in Russian, distinguishes light blue from dark blue much faster than the brain of a native English speaker who does not know Russian? Or is it necessary for him/her to leave in a Russian speaking environment for his/her brain to change its ‘vision’? Does your perception of the world broadens when you speak more than one language or do you lose one of the ‘visions’?

 A quick search for answers on the Internet revealed the following. Firstly, there is not yet enough data and research evidence of how (and if) human brain and human perception of the world changes when a person becomes bilingual or even multilingual. Secondly, the studies that do exist show that people who speak more than one language actually alternate their ‘language-formed’ perceptions according to the situation and environment around. Moreover, some scientists claim that it is very healthy and handy for your brain: the brain muscles have to work out hard every time you need to express yourself and you will not get dementia or Alzheimer’s disease when older. In fact, it is easier for bilinguals to just mix up two languages in their speech as this way, the brain does not have to put so much effort into analyzing what word and what perception to use in each situation.

Being bilingual Russian-English myself (though, not being brought up as bilingual) I must admit that having more than one ‘language’ universe does broaden my perception of the world. The simplest example is the concept ‘awkward’ which I learned only when I moved to the United States. I can find a dozen of Russian translations but each of them would express the English concept only partially, depending on the situation. However, in my everyday perception there exists a whole concept of someone or something being ‘awkward’ as one full picture regardless of the situation. So, in case of something existing in one ‘language universe’ and not in another, speaking fluently more than one language does fill the holes.  

But nothing comes without a price. I sadly admit that being bilingual limits my creative writing abilities. According to several studies (and supported by my experience), bilingual people tend to have weaker verbal skills (all of us living abroad had these painful moments on not being able to remember this one word in our own language) and not only on the lexical but also grammatical level. I noticed it when I took creative writing classes in my American college. English is very much action-oriented language with a lot of active verbal constructions and shorter sentences, while Russian is more object/description-oriented language with a lot of adjectives, adverbs and longer syntactic structures. Writing my pieces for the class, I realized with a despair that even though I have a good English, I sound absolutely Russian with all these endless actionless descriptions and unreadable pyramids of adjectives. The problem was that what I could have expressed in few compact Russian words demanded long detailed English explanations in order to capture my thought. The worst came when few months later, I decided to try writing some novels in Russian. It was a disaster – my language felt handicapped to me with dry sentences and tenuous scenes. Being bilingual, which was supposed to enrich my language expression abilities, was killing me as a writer…

To summarize, I can’t wait to see more studies that would shed some light on what is happening in time with our brain and our perception of the world when we start living in more than one language. So far, it seems like I will not die from dementia but I will not become a brilliant writer in neither of my languages…   

Resources: 

TED Talk by Lera Boroditsky 'How language shapes the way we think'; Miguel Angel Muñoz 'Does being bilingual makes you smarter?'; Gollan, T.H., Montoya, R.I., & Werner, G.A. 'Semantic and letter fluency in Spanish-English bilinguals';   Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I.M. Craik, Gigi Luk 'Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain'; Gaia Vince 'Why being bilingual works wonders for your brain'; Nicholas Weiler 'Speaking a second language may change how you see the world'. 

Email the author Ellen Bialysto, 

Fergus I.M. Craik

Gigi Luk

Library of Curious Facts. When mom’s lullaby saves your life.

Kadek was 12 when the Smong came to his village. He was doing his school homework when the table started shaking and suddenly everything was moving. There was no one else in the house: his aunt went to buy some vegetables and his uncle was at work. Kadek, scared to death, ran downstairs with some unconscious instincts whispering to him to get out of the house. And suddenly, in the chaos of moving chairs and flying books he saw like it was real, his mom’s deep dark eyes looking at him from above the cradle and heard her soothing voice singing his favorite lullaby:

 Please listen to this story

one day in the past

a village was sinking

that what have been told

starting with earthquakes

following by giant wave

whole the country was sinking

immediately

if the strong earthquake

followed by the lowering of sea water

please find in hurry

a higher place

it is called “Smong”

a history of our ancestor

please always remember

the message and instruction…

Kadek saw other villagers running towards the hills behind the village and yelling ‘Smong! Smong is coming! The sea went away! Smong is coming!’ ‘Hurry to a higher place...’, - whispered mom’s voice. And little Kadek started running towards life-saving hills with all his might…

Smong is your bath

Earthquakes is your swing bed

thunderstorm is your music

thunderlight is your lamp

On 26 December 2004 an earthquake of 9.1 M caused tsunami in Indian Ocean that destroyed many places in Asian and African countries. Aceh Province of Indonesia was one of the most devastated areas with death toll reaching 200,000 people. However, an Simeulue Island in this province with the overall population of around 78,000 people had only 7 victims. As soon as the earthquake hit the island and local villagers noticed that the sea level was falling, they all left their houses as they were and started running to the highest point of the island. They had only 15 minutes until the tsunami crushed on their shore but that was enough because everyone knew exactly what to do when Smong (means “tsunami in” Devayan Language) comes. After a deadly tsunami in 1907 that took away a lot of Simeulueans, a simple instruction ‘when the sea is going away and the ground shakes, don’t waste time - run uphill’ was passed from generation to generation in songs, short poems, lullabies and stories. To save Simeulueans in 2004.

Resources: https://medium.com/@jacopopasotti/the-smong-story-feaeb6a45e10 (English translation of the lullaby)

Syafwina, S. "Recognizing indigenous knowledge for disaster management: Smong, early warning system from Simeulue Island, Aceh." Procedia Environ Sci 20 (2014): 573-582. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029614000711)

Train strategy

I’m a huge fan of New Year resolutions: in 2013, I had 50 (yes, you read it right – 50!) resolutions, in 2015, it was 18, and this year, it’s only 15. So, I can say I’m moving towards more concise and focused goals in life.

In fact, these resolutions are rather practical steps that I need to take to reach my goals. However, the biggest general conclusion of 2017 and inspiration for 2018 is only one: I must learn how to not let people and circumstances stress me too much, especially when these people and circumstances are not important for me. In 2017, I experienced the biggest number of headaches in my life, I had taken the biggest amount of various medicines, I had got a nervous habit of biting lips, and I spent most of my free time (at least during the last 4 months) on the couch feeling exhausted and energy-less. All that happening not because of stress, but because of myself letting the stress to take over my mind and my body, to block my thinking, and to suck out all the energy and creativity I had; because of letting the stress to make me weak and to distract me from my actual goals…

Just before the New Year we bought a board game that we liked a lot some time ago at our friends’ in Budapest. It’s called Ticket to Ride (in English version) and the idea of the game is to build a railroad to connect the destination points of your mission. That game taught me one important thing – there is always another road, there is always a way around the troubles. Instead of getting stressed because some other player blocked your path, you go around the blockage and you still reach your destination. The funny fact is that rather often the ‘way around’ wins you the game – the longer your road is, more points you get!

That train strategy reminds me of our life. Yes, there can happen a lot of annoying things that significantly contribute to a discomfort in your life: loud neighbors, grumpy bus drivers, constant rain and heavy clouds, illogical requests at work, dishonest people and ridiculous laws, etc. But do these people and circumstances really stop you for reaching your goals? In most situations, not. Then why even care? Keep your missions in front of your eyes and don’t waste your efforts and your energy on people and circumstance that don’t deserve it. And always remember - the longer way might be the winning one.

Happy New 2018 where I’m not going to care for things that are not vital for my mission and my train! Happy New 2018 where I focus my energy on things that I like and I want to do!

Weakened by the comfort.

Pontius Pilate sufferig from migraine in Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (movie)

I happen to suffer from migraines: pretty much every weekend (either Saturday, or Sunday, or even both days) I want to kill myself. I can’t think, I can’t concentrate, I can’t even watch some stupid TV-show, I spend most of my day sleeping and actively suffering. Also, I take tons of painkillers that don’t help anyway until the day is over.

Feeling really upset about wasting my weekends like this (in bed and almost crying), I started asking myself a question: how did other people deal with migraines in the past? In fact, many famous scientists, writers, artists, and world leaders had this kind of unbearable headache throughout their life: Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Edgar Poe, Charles Darwin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Karl Marx, Alfred Nobel, etc. Despite of severe pain and obstructed vision that it caused, these people succeeded to change the world’s views, to rule the empire, to create genius books and most beautiful music. It’s known for a fact that even while having strong migraines, Michael Bulgakov was not only writing his novels but even created the most colorful and accurate description of the migraine spasm in his famous novel ‘Master and Margarita’. Vincent van Gogh created some of his most outstanding masterpieces exactly during his schizophrenic attacks. Ludwig van Beethoven couldn’t hear a sound, but kept writing his stunning music full of harmony and love. These people transformed their diseases into the art!

How strong do you need to be psychologically to not only overcome the pulsating pain and physical exhaustion, but to create something so beautiful and genius? Okay, you might say – come on, these people didn’t have this crazy technological progress and world swirling around in the unbearably fast pace, that puts so much stress and pressure on us today. But on the other hand, many famous artists lived in a total poverty, without being able to sell or have their works recognized. That’s quite a pressure when you have nothing to eat, isn’t it? 

Maybe, that is actually the root of the problem. In their time, there wasn’t many ways to fight the disease: you either ‘suck it up’ and keep doing your work, or you die. Nowadays, we have many painkillers to shut up the disease, spa and psychiatrists to relief the stress, and so much pity for ourselves that we give up on creating something meaningful as soon as we start feeling a little ‘under weather’. In spite of having all these means, we suffer from mild depressions, stress-caused headaches, problems with sleeping and eating, but most importantly, from being weakened by the comfort of the new world.

How do we get strong, determined and effective again, to be able to change the world to better even when our world is full of pain? How do we stop being constantly tired and start creating? 

Paper balls of words

A week ago, I was asked by our friends whose young daughter is applying for colleges, to have a look at her personal essay for college applications. The very first paragraph absolutely conquered my heart: it was a true piece of very creative and realistic writing, describing her calming down a new-born baby as a volunteer in the children’s hospital. The writing reflected her personal perception of the situation so well that you almost felt like being in the hospital hall yourself. The rest of the essay had the same vivid and powerful “visual” approach of the writing. And as a writer I absolutely loved it.

However, the second thought after “I love this” was “is it appropriate for the college application?” I have never been a high school student in the US applying for a BA degree in the liberal arts college, so I’m not entirely sure what are the expectations. But when I was applying for a Master degree in American college, I had a very strict and clear idea of how my essay should be structured: stating your experience and explaining how this experience makes you want to apply for the program. There was no question of being “creative”: you know what they expect from you and you are trying to make your candidature sound as strong as possible. Having that in mind, I recommended my friends’ daughter to keep the originality of the personal situations but add explanations of what each situation taught her, how did it make her want to go to the college, and in which way this situation influenced her perception of her own future.

No doubt, I wanted my friends’ daughter to get to the college she dreamed about, I wanted her essay to be strong and persuasive. But somewhere at the back of my mind itched a question: why do we consider things to be “appropriate” only if they follow the well-established, traditional scheme or structure? Yes, these are very important and serious things such as college applications, graduation thesis, scholarly papers, job CVs, and official statements. And of course, it is easier to check thousands of essays or CVs when they follow the well-established templates. So, we teach these templates at school, at the career and academic centers, we correct students’ papers according to these templates, we write press releases following the template, and we start leaving by these templates. We start expecting everyone around to behave according to these templates: what to say at your job interview, how to talk to your boss, how to behave with the clients, how is the shop assistant supposed to address you, etc. etc. etc. When someone’s behavior suddenly does not confirm to our “templates” we feel uncomfortable, we think that the person is at best “funny” and “a little strange”, at worst “creepy” and “dangerous”.

There is a very clear distinction in the academic world between “academic” and “creative”. If you don’t follow a long manual of requirements on how to write an academic paper, your paper will be returned to you for correction. If you want to be creative, go for arts and creative writing, which is not considered “very academic” disciplines in the society. I have to write quite a lot for my work – mostly position paper, statements for lobbying the European institutions and national governments, sometimes informative news items. Luckily for me, there are templates to follow for all of these papers: I don’t need to spend much time deciding how to structure my writing. Unluckily for me, I see how superficial and ‘inhuman’ my words are as I myself get sometimes bored from my writing. And I know that if you’d risk writing something unusual, something from a personal perspective, something with human passions and human feelings, it would not even be considered neither by my organisation, nor by governments we are addressing. It is as if the words don’t actually mean anything: officials already know what we are asking for, we know that they don’t want to do it so we keep demanding. The actual wording doesn’t matter, they don’t even read it, they highlight the important words, “investments”, “working conditions”, “professional needs”. It would have had the same effect if we threw paper balls at people in the governments to remind them about our demands. The words became the paper balls in our world. They are only signs signifying what category the paper belongs to: academic work, political statement, or a piece of art.

There is no place or time for creativity and unusual in the modern world of effective service, profitable business, effective politics, and serious science because it takes time and effort to perceive and understand it, it brings uncomfortable and unknown, and you can’t respond to it with an email template “Dear XXX, Thank you for your message. I’m looking forward to seeing you soon. Best regards, XXX”.