I was extremely impressed by the Coordinated Arts Program’s conference yesterday. We were very lucky to be able to hear such passionate presentations and discussions from so many different backgrounds and perspectives (of which we would have never been aware of outside of our stream).

I would like to bring into discussion a lecture conducted by Paul Andre Narvestad, from the PPE stream, called “The Faceless Drone: The Alienation of Soldiers in War by the Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” Paul talked about the recent rapid development of military technology and its impact on the moral behaviors of soldiers. His main point was that there is a significant discrepancy between the action of being on the ground and engaging in shooting, bombing, etc. and sitting behind a computer, clicking a button to destroy something on the other side of the world. Evidently, the latter action changes the game of war entirely.

Thinking about drones from an ASTU perspective, I suggest that not only is there a moral discrepancy that has grown out of this development, but there is also a gap between the technological abilities and consequences of Westerners and their “eastern” enemies. I’d like to focus particularly on the War on Terror, because most of the drone strikes are currently being carried out in high terrorism areas such as Pakistan. I would argue that drones are negatively contributing to war as a vague and intangible concept: from a Western audience in media consumption of the War on Terror, still continuing after more than a decade, a sense of nationalist pride encourages the cold-blooded destruction of our “enemies.” However, we are fighting an unequal battle: modernization is occurring at different rates between the Global North and South, and drones are an extreme example of how the West (particularly the United States) tends to obliterate the humanness of less developed nations.

In this way, I want to contribute to Paul’s discussion by saying that perhaps the larger moral scope should include not just the actions of soldiers behind desktop computers, but by also addressing that Western war tactics have reached a level at which we can never turn back. How can we justify fighting armies which don’t even have the same technological abilities as us (or even the same military budget to accomplish this kind of development)? The issue nauseatingly redefines the sphere of crimes against humanity. Killing as an unethical action is one thing, but drones still don’t have the accuracy to minimize the killings to strictly perceived terrorists: the range of these robots are both inaccurate and expansive enough to obliterate any citizens in close vicinity. Essentially, we’re annihilating entire families and communities with the click of a button (or an algorithm, as Paul brought up). Addressing culpability opens a whole other can of worms, so for now I want to put forward the recurrent ego problem that the West has, and that tactical dominance changes the game of war to one that furthers nationalism of the hegemonic, and encourages the facelessness of the ill-equipped.

Jiwani and Young’s article on “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse” introduced a concept that I found particularly compelling: the idea of media framing. They cite researcher Robert Entman in defining the term as “selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (902). Essentially, the news chooses a particular storyline which will get the biggest audience and which benefits hegemonic social powers. I read the news daily from a number of international sources (Al Jazeera is my fave), so “framing” isn’t something I’m too worried about falling for, but the following case in the Central African Republic is certainly a slap in the face. Often, it seems media framing can result from oversimplification of very deep, convoluted issues into one which is more palpable for a wider audience. However this palpability creates a barrier between the people involved in a conflict and everyone outside of it, rendering lost agency for those directly affected and eliminating a sense of responsibility by the unaffected.

While the CAR has been in conflict since its independence in 1960, the nation has most recently broken out in a religious conflict between majority Christians and minority Muslims. Thousands of people have been killed already, with statistics certainly pointing towards religious-ethnic based cleansing and recently displayed in the media as a genocide (or verge of genocide– once the “g” word is spoken then it’s a go). Fortunately, UN peacekeepers and French troops have definitely been more active in the country since the conflict began. Many liken it to the 1993 Rwandan genocide, even though the political dynamics are entirely different (discussed below).

French soldiers becoming more involved in the conflict

The situation in the CAR is similar and different than the horrors of Rwanda (and trying to compare it to other genocides again removes the complexity and agency of the conflict). Firstly, like I mentioned before, the importance of the media framing the situation as genocidal has been beneficial in advocating for international aid and a timely UN response (unlike Rwanda ahem). However, not only is genocide an inaccurate description of the situation, for reasons cited here, therefore inciting ineffective solutions for aid, by labelling it as “genocide” the international community feels a sense of relief that they don’t have to do anything about it. Genocide means the peacekeepers show up, government gets reinstated, and hopefully things calm down in a few months with a lengthy healing process. The UN will take care of it (except they usually accomplish little) (but I’m not bitter).

But, the “heart of darkness” region has been in chaos basically since the Brits showed up two hundred years ago. Summing it up as “genocide” just doesn’t quite explain the whole of it. “Framing” the conflict as genocide is problematic for citizens of the CAR in that the nation’s agency is lost in conceptions of, oh, just another war in Africa. While the Responsibility to Protect initiative aims for genocide prevention (rather than only interfering once officially “declared” a genocide), there are significant doubts in its complications of semantics and logistics, which often defer international involvement out of fear of political partisanship (e.g. in Syria).

It is imperative that the politics and history of the conflict are discussed and presented throughout media more thoroughly, so that methods of international aid be significantly more effective and long-term. The storyline created by the media as Christians killing Muslims is extremely basic, and leaves out how Christians are being killed by Muslims too, there is a possibility of the country splitting in half, not to mention all of the other, to borrow a term from Jiwani and Young, “invisible” groups involved.

Yes, “genocide” gets people’s attention. But is attention more important than discursive investigation? Both solutions for representation are ethically challenging and provoking. It’d be great if you could comment with your opinion!

From now until April, the Belkin Art Gallery over on Main Mall is hosting an impressive exhibit on Cuban contemporary art. And wow, was it contemporary. From a 25 minute-long clip of a woman seductively licking a cactus (not sure what this had to do with anything) to a powerpoint showing the overtly hidden sociological research conducted by Cuban university students which disclosed failed economic policies and staggering poverty levels in Havana, this exhibit very clearly showed a collective, however inherently dyadic, sentiment among Cuban nationals. The gallery’s title, The Spaces Between, assumedly refers to the conflicting identities which Cubans struggle with as they live in communism yet are surrounded by globalized, capitalist societies on all sides. Many of the pieces attempted to deal with these complex “spaces” involved in identity construction by confronting the hypocrisy and corruption encountered on a daily basis.

Several works in particular struck me as embodiments of these spaces. Jorge Wellesley is a native artist whose simple yet compelling style serves to reveal the dualities which ominously weave their way through Cuban life. Truth 0023, Truth, Realidad, y Lenguaje Astigmatismo (2005) is a series of three prints which, seemingly transparently, align one or two words in white type along a black background. The prints manipulate language in correlation with the dichotomy of Cuban politics: Exit/Exito visually leaves no gray space to consider. On a deeper level, it contemplates the associations of Cuban identity amidst oppression. Exit, meaning to leave, and Exito, the Spanish word for success, equally scrutinize the hardship of Cubans who wish to escape Communism and who expect greater prospects by assimilating to Westernization but who are faced with strict political radicalism. Human rights in Cuba are a major problem and the injustices further the covert gray areas of political identification.

To further my point, I’ll also put into perspective a video from the same gallery by Javier Castro called La Edad Del Oro (2012). The short film interviewed dozens of children asking them what they want to be when they grow up, and the answers ranged from astronauts and teachers to hookers and drug dealers. Yes, “hooker” coming from the mouth of an 8 year-old. Evidently, the reality in Cuba is that poverty operates with its own agency, whose authoritative strength maintains the socioeconomic weakness throughout an entire society. Identities developed as children, it seems, are established in the face of backwards regimes where there exists a lapse between what is communicated and what is comprehended, between the dreams they are told and the corruption and despair they witness every day.

However, recently these gray spaces seem to be evolving. The international news network Al Jazeera released an article explaining the latest endeavors of the Raúl Castro regime. While Latin American, Canadian, and European tourism have been fueling the isolated economy against all odds of decades of US embargoes, it appears that the island nation has decided to move towards a policy of international cooperation. An attempt to challenge US dominance could be potentially rewarding for Cuba, who hosted a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) this January. Increasing support from the international community towards improving economic and human right conditions put a positive spin on years of stagnant resistance, but as of yet it is difficult to say just how Cuba can effectively push up against US sanctions. Perhaps in the near future, the gray areas expressed by Cubans will clarify with greater exposure to international trade and internal development. Solidarity and cooperation have seemed inconceivable in the face of punitive diplomacy, but these recent developments indicate a shift in both national and governmental sentiment towards progress: Exito may no longer require an Exit. 

While coming back on the train from Portland last week, I was perusing the New York Times opinion section and stumbled upon an article about multiculturalism and immigration in France. Justin E. Smith’s article, called “Does Immigration Mean ‘France is Over’?”, discusses a recent rise in apathy amongst French natives towards increasing immigrant populations. As an American expatriate unaffected by immigrant racism, Smith is able to observe these ongoings from a uniquely unbiased viewpoint. He explains that the general sentiment of the French is that immigrants are contributing to an extreme loss of culture within the nation, arguably a trend throughout Europe correlated with a parallel rise in economic uncertainty.

Philosophically, Smith argues, many of the French base their judgements upon media generalizations of immigrant “métissage”, which he crudely translates as the “mongrelization”of France. Similarly, it is quite common to use the term “overrun” or “invasion” when speaking of the influx of immigrants in France. A notable campaign promise during the 2012 presidential elections was to put a yearly cap on the number of immigrants entering the country. But, wait… don’t the French have a long history of “invading” other countries around the world? In fact, the majority of immigrants are from Francophone countries which were previously colonized by France, such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal, among others. Personally, I think these immigration rates are to be expected after ditching these countries in the 1900’s and overtly causing political chaos (Arab Spring, anyone?).

Smith reinforces his point with philosopher Michael Dummett’s interpretation of the irony. Arguably, and historically, immigrants who contribute as equally to society as French-born citizens should have approximately equal legal and social status (because realistically, with a country as complex and populated as France (i.e. not tiny & homogeneous like, for example, Iceland), a cultural “takeover” isn’t going to happen anywhere in the neat future). And yet, immigrants rights to equality are “set up in conflict with the right of earlier inhabitants to cultural preservation, [which] has very much to do with both state policy and with popular opinion.” Evidently popular opinion isn’t quite so empathetic right now.

As Smith eloquently explains, “With the contraction of the empire and the reorientation of French nationalism from an imperial to a cultural focus, the distinction between equal and unequal contracted from a global to a local scale. Francophones from around the world began to move to metropolitan France in large numbers, but now their status was transformed from that of colonial subjects to that, simply, of foreigners. But of course the fact that these unequal subjects have settled in France has very much to do with the historical legacy of French imperialism; Francophone Africans do not choose to come to France on a whim, but because of a long history of imposed Frenchness at home.”

I know this was a really long quote, but I couldn’t have summed it up any better. This issue in France brings a whole new spice into the simmering multiculturalism stew (sorry): Xenophobia is the spice of hypocrisy in the post-colonial world. As we talk about Diamond Grill and various relationships among the significance of citizenship, belonging, culture, dislocation and relocation, and marginalization, the problems in France seem to echo around other Western countries committing the same blatant hypocrisy (mostly in Europe for now, but could be somewhat applied to Mexican immigration rates in the US). Multiculturalism is a nice idea, but I’m starting to doubt its practicality. Racial discrimination by not only the French but throughout the French media signifies a larger global issue of the continuation of marginalizing the powerless in heist of the powerful.  Additionally, the blatant irony of this mindset is quite shameful. If France doesn’t want so many immigrants, maybe it should go into the Congo, into Ivory Coast, and please into the Central African Republic and Syria and try to fix the political unrest and humanitarian crises it started.

Side note, today I signed up to donate to the NGO, non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders at 10 bucks a month. Instead of France taking responsibility, it’s now the rest of the world’s responsibility to go in and solve these problems. Hmm.

In response to my classmate Niklas’ recent blogs about Anthony Bourdain in Detroit as well as Nicaragua, I’d like to comment on my perspective of the famous chef’s recent presence in travel television.

First of all, I’m completely biased in this argument because I think Anthony Bourdain is a total badass. I’ve read his memoir, Kitchen Confidential, and frequently watch with both his TV shows on the Travel Channel. Niklas mentioned that his presence in media reflects the Western trend of “othering” impoverished populations. I will admit I did cringe when Bourdain stood amongst trashpickers in a Nicaraguan landfill just saying how depressing he thought everything was. Yo, Bourdain, why don’t you pitch in a little bit, or maybe get a translator and have down-to-earth conversations with these people without flashing a camera in their face? I contend that it is unfortunate that the show blatantly objectifies their condition in comparison to Bourdain’s privileged one.

At the same time, I don’t agree that Parts Unknown is on the same page as God Grew Tired of Us. GGTU glorifies the American dream and Western privilege by shipping over Sudanese refugees to show how their lives significantly improve in this radically different society. However bad Anthony Bourdain is at empathizing with Nicaraguan trashpickers and other developing countries he visits, his prerogative has nothing to do with helping people. The TV show is about underground food scenes around the world, and shedding light on the communities which create it.

The audiences of the two films are wholly different. From a personal stance, I watch Bourdain’s shows to get inspired about food culture, to see amazing footage of different landscapes around the world, and to laugh along with his uncompromisingly dry humor. Bourdain is a strong presence with real culinary talent, and shares a fascination with the international food scene just like his audience members. Bourdain is not demanding a humanitarian response, and has not established that he wants this kind of attention; Bourdain acts as a chef, not as a representative US political interests. Conversely, the GGTU film morally compromises international relations by just showing how the US does so much good for suffering populations. The audiences of GGTU are looking for a feel-good documentary on how their country is helping the world. While I see the validity of Niklas’ arguments in the scope of modern television and its influence on the Western mindset, in order to further global citizenship, I’d argue that we need to be careful in how we contexualize examples of globalization and objectification.

It’s not necessary to over analyze every single film or television show as a representative of Western interests, when in reality TV presences such as Anthony Bourdain are maybe just not being as politically correct as we want them to be. While ignorance reigns in Western media, hypersensitivity is not the most productive way to respond to it.

P.S. Niklas I’m not telling you you’re wrong, your perspective just reminded me of how all the things we’ve been talking about in class respond similarly to the problems of globalization. I just wanted to bring in another viewpoint.

Every couple of weeks, the Amnesty International UBC club gets together to write letters to governments who are currently committing human rights violations against one or more citizens. Ana, our letter writing coordinator, gives us her spiel on a human rights issue which correlates with a monthly theme (e.g. LGBT rights, women’s rights, indigenous rights, etc.) We each then write an individual letter with envelopes to the government involved. I was skeptical at first, but apparently these letters are super effective in getting the governments’ attention and changing the situation of political prisoners. It helps that other Amnesty clubs around the world are often working on the same issue, so governments get bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of letters on an issue. Power in numbers, eh?

This past week we talked about the imprisonment of two gay men in Zambia who were charged with alleged homosexual behavior, as well as the case of Cao Shunli, a Chinese activist who was detained for rallying public support for a UN report on human rights in China. According to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, their imprisonments violate freedom of expression, security, conscience, and sexuality. Also on Friday, the club held a formal event where we set up a booth on campus so that people could stop by and sign pre-written letters. The cases are outlined on Amnesty International Canada’s website if you’re interested.

From all that we’ve been discussing in class about Human Rights organizations, I thought it important to evaluate Amnesty’s influence on a larger global platform. A few weeks ago in Political Science we discussed the inherent bias of many NGO’s in their humanitarian endeavors, specifically that with monetary funding. While humanitarianism by definition requires indifference to those in need, often the funding necessary to help people comes from governments or government-sponsored organizations with subjective prerogatives. On the funding page of the official Amnesty International Website, it appears that they are supported by not only government-sponsored overseas development funds but also Western organizations like the European Union. This has a significant effect on which human rights violations Amnesty and other human rights organizations choose to pursue and publish.

Although I believe that Amnesty International does a pretty good job at expanding its causes to a number of nations, whether or not in line with Western politics, it also has bias from the ways in which the Declaration is held as a Western ideal of human rights. I argue that there are significant differences in developing countries which may push higher importance of economic reform rather than human rights responsibilities, and other societies which value women’s rights differently in correspondence with family ties and norms. Often as a Westerner it seems as if we label others as purely sufferers who need to be enlightened by the ideological goals of our hemisphere. However, it is important to look beyond this and objectively evaluate political happenings, conflicts, imprisonments, and the like from a strictly moral and ethical point of view. If we take a step back and say, look, is the impact this political prisoner has on the larger global community potentially damaging to modern ideals of justice and equality? If we don’t do anything about this situation, are morals on a global scale on a decline? Were the reasons for their imprisonment legitimate, or just another way for a corrupt government to keep its people from speaking out against it?

Personally I believe that Amnesty International does a great job of initiating a cause for the global betterment of ethics. By telling the stories of individuals in light of violations of the UNUDHR, Amnesty sparks empathy by de-collectivizing voices. The issues we write letters about are extremely specific, and are attempts to call on governments who aren’t upholding their agreement with the Declaration. Wherever the funding comes from, what they’re doing works by improving the power of individual of agency and furthering political and ethical developments in the modern era.

Recently on Alt.Latino, a spanish-speaking branch of NPR (National Public Radio, sort of like CBC but just in the US), I heard about a book called La Bestia: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail by Salvadoran Oscar Martinez. Published in originally 2010 as Los Migrantes Que No Importan (The Migrants Who Don’t Matter), the book is a non-fiction account of his journey from areas of Southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to the United States. The title is named after the infamous freight train, “The Beast,” which hundreds of thousands Latinos take to escape poverty and the effects of the Drug War and immigrate to the US (usually undocumented). While Martinez takes the journey eight times, his writing accounts for the journeys of others along the way. His style exhibits freelance journalism, where he asks many people their reasons for leaving their homes and making the grueling, dangerous trip. Along the way, he runs into gangs, kidnappings, gunfights, stories of rape and abuse, human trafficking, people falling or being knocked off the train, and the like. From these brief autobiographies, the reality is clear: the Drug War in Mexico is still going strong and any attempt to escape will likely end violently.

However, there are two specific aspects to La Bestia that I would like to discuss, the first being life narratives in transit and how Martinez creates a voice for these travelers, and the second in how the media has portrayed the war over the years.

Quite literally, La Bestia is a perfect example of life narratives in transit: the book illustrates the horrors of trying to get from one side to the barricaded other of a corrupted, war-ridden country. Martinez effectively intertwines the lives of the men and women he meets on the trail and does them justice by laying out full interviews for the reader. He interviews not only innocent people trying to get out of poverty, but also violent criminals, ex-gang members (often just teenagers), men who have been deported from the US 4 or 5 times over but who are still making the journey, rape victims, and grieving families. The picture he paints is visually categorized into thematic chapters, but in a broader scheme highlights the overwhelming sense of peril and despair so many migrants face. In doing this, Martinez gives a very clear voice not only to the migrants but also to the larger movement calling on the national and international sphere to end the war.

Throughout the book, Marntinez expresses a solid political stance on how the war has been portrayed in the past several years throughout the media. As we have discussed in class, audiences are often more keen to read stories of atrocities on larger scales, which are more eye-opening to them. In an interview with the Texas Observer, Martinez comments on the way in which the interest of the international community in the Drug War has come in waves but is largely waning:

“So when we realize the complexity of it I decided to stay on that path for three years exclusively traveling like an undocumented migrant through stretches, seeing what happened to the migrants, visiting those places that I think society as a whole had forgotten about. The massacre of migrants in Mexico began well before the 2010 massacre of migrants in Tamaulipas— people simply didn’t pay attention the way they do now.”

Unfortunately, it seems that the media has disregarded most of the chaos and corruption of the war in Mexico. When’s the last time you heard about large-scale disappearances, murders, and violent trafficking across borders? It’s an idea that faintly exists in the back of your head, but in my opinion the lack of media coverage has made it seem like the war was improving. After reading this boo, I’ve realized the situation is still wholly relevant. I was talking to my friend Natalia’s dad who worked for the Mexican government before moving to Vancouver, a super smart and eloquent guy, and he explained to me that there are outside influences which are keeping these stories under wraps. The drugs being trafficked into the US are largely exchanged for weapons, so both the US and Mexican governments are benefitting economically from the war. In a 2009 article, ex-President Felipe Calderon explained exactly this:

“The biggest empowerment of organized crime are the weapons that arrive from the United States,” the president said.

Even if the article is from a few years back, its implications are still relevant. Check out this article from the Atlantic: it explains the present interactions of cartels and gangs in Northern Mexico and the DEA’s fruitless attempts to end the conflict. Current President Enrique Peña Nieto called for policy improvements when he was elected, but so far nothing has been effective as murder rates still hover around 28,000 people/year in Mexico (Canada had 554 in 2012 according to Wikipedia).

I’d definitely recommend this book not only for Martinez’s exemplary, provocative writing style but also because it brings a collective voice to an important human rights cause. The best part about this is that Martinez isn’t an American outsider: this war has been a significant factor in his life and his journalism career, so the stories are legitimate.

Last night I and the Amnesty International UBC team headed over to the Norm theater to check out a film screening of the 2011 film Bhopali. This year marks the 29th anniversary of the US company Union Carbide (now owned by Dow chemicals) gas disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984. According to the film, more than 25,000 people and counting have been killed over the decades as a direct result from the disaster and more than 500,000 people have been affected in terms of contaminated water, birth defects, family deaths, or illness/infections. The film provided the historical background of the tragedy, as well as current attempts at community rebuilding, addressing the now 3rd generation of birth defects, and legal action on part of the Indian government and Dow/the US government.

As much as I would love to discuss legal justice for human rights abuses, that’s not quite what this class is about. So, I will bring up several interesting things about the movie related to commodification, globalization, and celebrity presence. First, the movie has been on a world tour since 2011, and is currently on a North-American specific tour. Next stop: New York City. Sanjay Verma, who was interviewed in the movie for his experience with the disaster in that 7 of his family members died when he was 6 months old and whose only brother committed suicide from the paranoid psychological effects of the chemicals, came out on stage after the movie for some Q and A. He explained that in order for Bhopal to get the justice it deserves, the tragedy needs to gain more support in places like the US and Canada so that the rest of the world will pay attention. Since the 30th anniversary year is approaching, he hopes that spotlighting Bhopal in the media will draw attention to the fact that neither the Indian government nor Dow chemicals has done much to compensate the affected Bhopal population nor have made any attempt to clean up the site. In fact, a German company offered to clean up the site a few years ago and bring the toxic waste safely into Germany for appropriate destruction. This did not end up working out unfortunately but it highlights the fact that the disaster is not only the responsibility of India and Dow, but also of the international community. The benefits of commodifying the film into Western media presence will surely be better than any subsequent generalizations about developing communities because no one will help them otherwise.

Speaking of the benefits of globalization, I don’t know about anyone else but this ASTU class is making me severely depressed about my position of Western privilege and the fact that I have been socialized (i.e. brainwashed) to think I’m superior to everyone on the planet. However educational it is to be aware of my position and my advantages, it’s pretty upsetting that we label Westerners as manipulative, selfish, demeaning people in every aspect of media and journalism. Take the 25 Whitest Things To Have Ever Happened example on Buzzfeed– ok, I get it, our generation makes a fool of itself and is oblivious to the needs of our international neighbors.

But after seeing Bhopali, after a speech by the famous activist David Suzuki and with representatives from the Bhopal effort, and after being informed that there’s going to be a fictitious-but-almost-true Hollywood movie in 2014 about Bhopal, I don’t feel bad. I feel enlightened. I feel proactive. I feel like part of the cause, like I’m contradicting my generation’s stereotype by actually getting out there, getting educated, and vocally supporting important movements for justice. As we recently discussed in Political Science, the lack of corporate social responsibility is what is truly damaging our rapidly developing world. In the film, Dow claimed that because of corporate liability complexities, the previous owner of Union Carbide Warren Anderson had zero legal responsibility after the disaster. He’s currently retired, chilling in a mansion on Long Island. Union Carbide agreed on a settlement with the Indian Government for some 400 million dollars, which only gives the victims of Bhopal about $500 a person, which is of course distributed in monthly rations of like 4 bucks. What the hell happened? Why is there no international law, no international initiative to address corporate responsibility for mass-scale deaths? Why are the water sources in old Bhopal STILL polluted, because obviously the population has no other place to get water? Imagine if you recently bore a child, and knowingly had to drink contaminated water which affected your breast milk? You’d be fully aware that you’re directly poisoning your child, and yet what other choice do they have? This situation is entirely current and relevant. Why have they been constantly denied cleanup and community resources?

While I have few solutions to these problems, at least I am aware. Being a proactive, educated, vocal individual completely cancels out the label of a Westernized, ignorant, conceited bigot. I honestly believe that the presence of celebrities like David Suzuki are extremely beneficial to causes such as the Bhopal movement, because the fact is no one is going to pay attention otherwise. You can show them starving, disabled children, or show tests upon tests about water quality, but no one is going to care unless it affects them personally or if they can relate. In this way, celebrity presence isn’t a bad thing because as long as justice is being served, it doesn’t matter how the media decides to get the story out there.

Bhopalis still fighting for justice

Mass deaths in 1984

Birth defects still largely affecting the population. Children born in Bhopal are 7 times as likely to have birth defects than the rest of India.

This past Saturday I was invited to attend the opening reception for the latest exhibit at the UBC Museum of Anthropology called The Marvelous Real. The MOA website offers this explanation for titiling 55 stupendous Mexican works of art:

“In 1949, the Cuban writer and ethno-musicologist, Alejo Carpentier (1904 – 1980), coined the term the ‘marvellous real’ to describe a particular kind of magic realism that is manifest in the arts and everyday life of Latin America. Eluding the expected through bizarre amalgamations, improbable juxtapositions, and fantastic correlations, the marvellous real is, as Carpentier said, ‘neither beautiful nor ugly; rather, it is amazing because it is strange.'”

After an hour-long journey through the exhibition in the Audain Gallery, I can say that the pieces were outstandingly marvelous, in fact inexplicably more than this. But I’m biased: I have always had an interest in Latin American culture, and hope to major in Spanish, so when my Mexican friend Natalia asked me to join her I was beyond excited. She and her family recently moved to Vancouver from Mexico City, and her father happens to be in close contact with not only the Vice Consul of Mexico to Vancouver (they had Thanksgiving dinner together!), but also the Mexican Ambassador to Canada. The Ambassador, among other speakers and representatives, gave an insightful speech about Canadian-Mexican relations. He emphasized that the social and economic connections between the two countries are imperative to their thriving relationship and that, as a representative to Mexicans, he was proud to be a part of such a contemporary and inspiring exhibit. You could say I was star struck, especially because after the reception I was able to meet him as well as the head Consul General of Mexico to Vancouver (a lovely woman) thanks to Natalia.

As for the actual art pieces, you should definitely go see them yourself. There were a variety of famous Mexican painters, from the colorful Rufino Tamayo, to the contemporary Carlos Amorales, to the classic Frida Kahlo. Two paintings in particular stood out to  me the most. I’m not going to analyze the paintings, but they are fascinating, beautiful works that I thought would be nice to share. Surrealism is, in my opinion, one of the coolest approaches to art because of the use of color, brush technique, and the endless interpretations it provokes. Surrealist art through the past century has a rich, fascinating history especially when comparing and contrasting cultural trends, as shown in the uniqueness of these Mexican wor

The first is by painter Leonora Carrington, called Step-Sister’s Hen (or Marigold, Marigold, Tell Me Your Answers Do) (1954) :

The second is by Juan O’Gorman, entitled The Myths (1944). I could spend hours staring at the intricacies of this painting. I am also fascinated by how many surrealist paintings, such as this, use quite morbid themes which can be interpreted philosophically or religiously.

All of the artwork displayed in the gallery is part of a travelling exhibition which is owned by Mexican corporate giant FEMSA (also known as the #1 bottler of Coca Cola in the world). This is the first time the exhibition has been shown in Canada, as it mostly moves around Latin America. I find this to be a sublime example of how globalization delves into every single aspect of society, even the most innocent of them: art. FEMSA controls the exhibit and owns all the pieces, making the works not only widely available for a multitude of audiences (via exhibition travels or even the internet) but also transforms the very essence of art and creativity into a commodity. There’s two sides to this: The negative implies that although artists need to make an income to survive in this capitalist world, it does seem a bit twisted to manipulate and put a price on one’s creative talent; However, from a more positive perspective, the globalization of art into a mass market increases availability for people like you or me who appreciate art for leisure or academic value.

Do yourself a favor and go see the exhibit. The Mexican and Latino community in Vancouver is extremely small compared to our southern neighbor, so it’s a great way to get some cultural insight and to get lost in the intricacies of surrealist art.

Also, one of my and Natalia’s favorite Mexican artists who was not in the exhibit is called Remedios Varo. Pop a Google image search of her and your mind will be blown.

My best friend Ben is currently attending University of Pittsburgh in the United States. We frequently send letters back and forth across countries, just to check in and mail each other university gear or gifts, etc. This past week he sent me a letter telling me about a restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Conflict Kitchen. The restaurant only serves food from the country in which the US is currently in conflict with, and the country rotates every few months. Currently, the country is Cuba, and in the past they have done Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Iran. The Iranian version is what stuck out most to me because of our recent class readings of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Hillary Chute’s critical analysis of the book.

The restaurant organized a traditional Iranian menu and several events around the politics Iran-US conflict. The restaurant invited Iranians around the world to write part of a speech that they would like President Obama to deliver to Iran. The ideas were composed into a solitary speech which was then presented by an Obama look-alike around Pittsburgh. The introduction to the speech stuck out most to me:

“As President of the United States of America, I am well aware of the mistakes we have made in regards to your country. You struggles for you freedom and democracy for decades and when it was finally being achieved in the early 1950’s, we orchestrated, organized, and financed a military coup to overthrow your elected government and bring back the Shah who ruled the country with an iron fist for over a quarter of a century more… That is the legacy of the United States in Iran, and the main factor that led to your uprising in 1979.”

This passage provides context to the sentiments expressed in Satrapi’s writing. While Western culture was idealized and worshipped, I now recognize a sense of bitter irony when she wrote about parents’ involvement in the Iranian revolution. The United States has not only been involved in Iranian affairs for the past half-century, but also is responsible for the corrupt regimes that which internally destabilized the country for decades to come, including during Satrapi’s childhood. Perhaps Satrapi doesn’t explicitly blame the US, but the Conflict Kitchen’s Iran Speech provides some historical international background information that is left out in the graphic novel.

Relatedly, Satrapi maintains a very unique social position during the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. I can appreciate that the Iran Speech puts other voices into context, and perhaps dissonant ones in relation to Satrapi’s. Her childhood character idolizes Western culture and media and seems to have little knowledge of its political responsibility for the country’s dishevelment. In her teenage years, she left Iran to attend boarding school in Europe and was therefore absent from later international involvement and trauma. Comparatively, the voices expressed in the speech have a significant distrust and dislike for the United States because of its corrupt political intricacies with Iran from the latter half of the twentieth century until today.

Ultimately, not only is the Conflict Kitchen a tremendously creative and impactful idea, but it provides insight and context to current and past international conflicts by bringing forth real-time opinions to the public sphere. Most of what we hear comes from the news, but the Conflict Kitchen spotlights individual voices and their sentiments from the other side of the conflict and in doing so shapes an unconventional national identity.