Last post! I cannot really believe it has been three months but here it goes. The last journal article that we read in ASTU class this term is “Conjunctions: Life Narratives and Human Rights by Schaffer and Smith. It was my favourite article because it talks about where all the civil rights movements surged from and the fuel that some human rights campaigns use: life narratives. Schaffer and Smith used I Rigoberta Menchú as their case study to analyze the idea of “testimonio”, in which one voice would represent the communal abuse.  I Rigoberta Menchú was considered somewhat controversial due to the fact that some things from the book where not actual personal experiences, and used to convey a stronger message.

I find it interesting who actually voices the concern of the people. What I mean by this is that for example in the case of Rigoberta Menchú, she used as justification for the lies in the book by saying that she was voicing the oppression that existed in a community.  Because she is part of the community, one could say that she is voicing the terrible oppression that the community has suffered, yet how do we know if she was the appropriate person to voice the oppression? Or if it was the best possible way to portray their oppression?

To this I bring the case of 132. 132 is a movement that surged in Mexico against the government at a private university in which students would refuse to ask predetermined questions to the presidential candidate, voicing that their democracy was not “a soap opera”. The presidential candidate expressed that it was “only 132 students”, which is barely intimidating for him. To what thousands and thousands of people started saying that they were also 132, manifesting against politicians that manipulate the people. The movement gained huge momentum due to the fact that many people where voicing the same concern, something that started very small became very big, because people started to join in a communal testimony.

So in the end, I ask myself, in which way is portraying communal struggle more legitimate?

In “Conjunctions: Life Narratives and Human Rights” Schaffer and Smith discuss the idea of how human rights awareness has increased since the Holocaust and fuelled civil rights movements (1-2) around the world. It is interesting how we can directly link the increase in human rights life narratives to the increase in charity culture throughout western society. As having lived in 3 countries, and travelled around quite a few, I can definitely assert that charity culture is something that is not new and also something that many people are involved in. Charity culture seems to be a response or an effect of human rights life narratives which Schaffer and Smith would refer to as empathetic identification (9). However, is charity culture just to be cool and fit in to society or to actually help?

I think that there are two approaches: the short-run and the long-run action. The idea of short-run action is an empathetic identification (9) that needs immediate response to a certain situation that is ocurring around the world. I think that this is the clearest example of how charity culture is present for people to actually help. Take for example, “The Tahrahumara case” in Mexico. This case consisted of an indigenous group that lives in the north of Mexico and started to commit massive group suicides because of famines (http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-hit-rumors-indian-famine-suicides-214914790.html). I chose this example because I was the organizer of food collection within my school. It was amazing to see the turnout that everyone had towards the issue and in a small school like mine, we managed to collect over 3 tonnes of non-perishable food. I believe this is a decent amount considering there are only approximately 1000 people in my former school. This means that on average everyone brought approximately 3kg of food each to aid this community. This would have not been possible if the video “Testimonio sobre suicidio colectivo” had not become popular. This video was released through several media outlets that called the immediate aid of this indigenous community in which a man would explain why women would commit suicide when they could not provide for their children (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdZXbuULXPQ). Proving the importance of a life narrative that would explain the suffering that the Tarahumaras were going through.

However, when we see charities that are done in the long-run, I believe that this empathetic identification (9) is existent but in a smaller way. With charities like for example, TOMS, we see that they have long project goals and extremely intelligent and responsible business model, in which for every pair sold, another is given for free to children in underdeveloped nations. However many people now buy them just because they are really cool, moving away from the true benefit from that kind of shoe. I first noticed this when I saw other companies and pirated fake copies in a street market. This is almost like downloading a hurricane relief album illegally, sounds kind of disturbing but it is indeed true. So in the end, I feel that the true message of the charity is lost if goals are too long term but also if something becomes too popular. But are we expected to sit around and wait for something bad to happen for us to act?

Bibliography: Schaffer, K. and Smith, S. 2004. Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights. Biography, 27 (1), pp. 1-9. Available from: doi: 10.1353/bio.2004.0039 [Accessed: 26 Nov 2013].

During this ASTU semester we touched upon a rather interesting internet website which I had no previous knowledge of: PostSecret. PostSecret is a webpage that publishes the best anonymously secrets sent through a postcard. This is a different confession site than the ones I previously knew of like Six Billion Secrets or FMyLife, since the secrets are expressed through artwork and not through the tales of words.

I think that this is a key of the success of PostSecret. Art. It may indeed contain words, but an image is most of the time so powerful than it does not need explanation. These images are open for analysis yes, but in the end they are open to interpretation from anyone who views it. The mere truth is that everyone will look at it the same image yet come up with different conclusions. We might as well all be art experts and might agree on some points but in the end our initial perspective for a certain image will be different to everyone else. This in essence means that there is a higher demand, or audience, for this type of confession sites.

I often see words as cages that restrict you from explaining the real message of what you are trying to convey. This is my thought on why being a great writer is so hard nowadays. Great authors for me those who would be able to describe every single thing with a great amount of detail. Anyone can tell a story, yes, but it is those who bring you into the story that are true story tellers. This is why I admire Dave Eggers so much, his precision and diction when describing special moments in What is The What, nevertheless he needs a certain word that will only describe a certain meaning. With confession art, it seems like people do it because they have no one to talk about and the audience might look at it and understand that if they are going through the same problem, issue or secret, that they are not going through it alone.

It is because of this why I think the art exhibition in the Belkin Art Gallery regarding Residential Schools was so powerful. One of the most commented pieces within our ASTU group would be that of Gina Laing: A Residential School survivor that would use art as therapy for the trauma she suffered. This because the images were very powerful and strong. The interpretation for everyone was different but it is clear that it was evident that the experiences that she went through were extremely traumatic and just impossible to describe the suffering that she went through in words. This is why I think art confessions, art expressions are so powerful. You draw what you feel, you paint your emotions whilst with words we see a unique meaning for the reader or audience. In the end, we could say that art is open for any kind of valid JUSTIFIED interpretation whilst writing is a more closed spectrum.

In ASTU we saw the “Sundance Documentary Award” winning “God Grew Tired of Us”. The documentary narrates the story of three young Sudanese men travel from their refugee village “Kakuma” to the United States (Pittsburgh and Syracuse) to be more exact. Here they have to adapt and learn the American economically impulsed lifestyle whilst living through the memories of a traumatic war-ridden past. It’s very interesting how the director chose to portray the story chronologically, always increasing the time lapses. I envy the patience, but the way in which it clearly demonstrates how long and hard is the road a refugee has to take in order to have a new life, is simply staggering. Nevertheless, the filming started five years before the movie was released. I understand that in order to portray the full story it had to take a long time to film but I ask myself if with the power that the producers have, why did they not raise awareness in another way?

However this is not a serious concern.

My main concern is why was Nicole Kidman casted over me to narrate this movie! Jokes, jokes, but in all honesty my voice would do the job. Regardless, nobody cares if I narrated a movie whilst if Nicole Kidman did, at least her fanbase would watch it. But why would the fanbase watch it?

Because humans are naturally gullible. We believe and trust that what people we glorify and respect, like teachers, or, in this celebrities. The groups that are valued in a society are often placed there because the actions they do are often seen as trendy or “cool”. This in essence means that what celebrities do, a certain portion of society will follow. There are even some pages that track the way in which celebrities behave towards charity with leaderboards on who contributes the most.

(http://www.looktothestars.org/cause/human-rights)

Which means that they are excellent marketing tools in which the idea is commidified (Whitlock) in order to sell the story to a wider and broader audience. But why does Nicole Kidman decide to contribute to this cause. In a interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTFCqhAMjIk) she mentions that after hearing the horrible stories of the kids, she asked herself well what can I do? It is a very interesting approach in terms of responsibility. Most of the human rights organizations, if not all, have a celebrity endorsing them. I would agree that it is a very beneficial trend for society, because celebrities now are aware of the burden and power that they possess in a society. Like teachers, politicians or activists, celebrities are “technically” there to guide us in life. They understand the huge amounts of power that they possess and some of them use it for a good cause. Also, we are able to see that as humans, her first reaction is to help, and this often happens with most of the people. When we first saw KONY we all wanted to help as time passed the momentum that the campaign had gained lost all its power.

In conclusion, this blog post remarks the way in which marketing tools in order to promote human rights are merely necessary if success is the main.

For a brief amount of the course we touched upon the point on how Facebook and Google manipulates the way in which we use their web sites for their, and our, advantage allowing our searches to be refined by patterns and algorithms that will in essence direct us to results that are related to what we searched for with just a touch of our preferences. It is almost as a recipe for huge delicious cake. Who doesn’t like cake? So, as a cake, this search result has a number of different ingredients with are the patterns in the algorithms. The difference with the cakes is that we exactly measure the amount each ingredient should be used to create this masterful and perfect combination of flavours that would melt in our mouths. On the other hand, we have the search result, our end cake. But the algorithm picks out all the ingredients and throws them into this supposedly masterful creation without any kind of measurement. Instead of having this list of ingredients of a basic cake:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 cups sifted self-rising flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

We have this:

• Butter
• Sugar
• Flour
• Eggs
• Milk
• Vanilla Extract

The search results that come up for me are different to the everyone else’s, and this is due to the fact that the algorithm picks up everything we have ever searched of and sneaks it into our search because it is believed to be a relevant part of myself.

I often regret the days in which I would lend my computer to my mother, not because Im an ungrateful and selfish kid, but because of the constant advertisement related to ballet. And no Amazon! I would not like the book, audiobook, ebook version, bilingual version, chinese version, chinese subtitles or japanese audio with chinese subtitles of The Hobbit.

But is it Facebook’s, Google’s or even Amazon’s fault? I put these questions into perspective because I personally have two answers:

YES and NO

A debate throughout the 20th and 21st century is the question of firms being profit maximizing and if it is socially responsible to be? However, we see that firms are motivated by profit maximization due to natural human nature and pursuit of self benefit. We see that with corporations like Facebook and Google, we are the product for companies. We often ask ourselves: How do these firms make money if they do not sell anything to us? Well, they do sell something, and what they sell is our preferences to normal firms that advertise online. Some companies pay big bucks to be the listed in the first pages of Google. As I tried searching for evidence, because I had previously seen an article on Exxon paying Google to be listed as a Socially Responsible Corporation but when I searched for the example, I could see the stock value for Exxon because I yesterday searched for the value of a Mexican firm at the Stock Market.

Nevertheless, we see that the main goals for Facebook and Google are the pursuit of knowledge within society. This is why Facebook believes that internet should reach even the most remote places of the world, or why Google created a device that would allow people living in oppressive regimes to switch identities with someone from the West (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/21/google-sends-a-lifeline-to-internet-users-in-iran-and-china.html)

They believe that the path for the truth has to be our own personal truth and our truth in things that motivate us, so they link together things they believe we like to aid us in this path.

So, is it their fault that our path towards our own personal truth is carved by cute cats playing the piano? Or is it also our responsibility to become informed citizens?