Babel

Category: Essay

Essay

  • 12th and Delaware: A Documentary About Abortion & CO, Raising Disturbing Feelings…

    (video taken from here – see the film, its description and comments in the link)

    This documentary is difficult to put in categories. It does follow the pro-life side, but at the same time, I can’t be sure of any bias because there isn’t any literal comment on what’s being filmed. Long story short, 8 years after an abortion clinic was opened in Fort Pierce, Florida, across the street, a pro-life group opened their own version of a pregnancy/counseling clinic. See the description here:

    The two sides of the abortion debate in America literally face one another in this documentary from filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. In Fort Pierce, Florida, a women’s heath care center is located at the corner of 12th and Delaware. On the same corner, across the street, is another women’s heath care center. However, the two centers are not in the same business; one provides abortions along with a variety of other health services, while the other primarily offers counseling to women considering abortion, urging them to keep their babies. In 12th and Delaware, Ewing and Grady offer a look inside both offices, as pro-life counselors give women a mixture of concern and disinformation about terminating their pregnancies and the pro-choice medical staff struggles to work under the frequent threat of violence against them. The film also examines the handful of protesters who stand outside the abortion clinic, confronting both patients and staff as they enter and exit.

    My problem is not with the film itself. My problem is with the context and the whole situation. Somebody who is level-headed and can think from more than one point of view, can see where the aggression lies and who is the victim in this issue. I’m not going to barge in the debate myself… Well, not completely. I’ve learnt to be careful about expressing an opinion (especially when we’re dealing with absolutes like “pro” and “con”) when I don’t know what I’m talking about. I pray to God that I won’t be put in that situation. I’ve passed the hard part (adolescence) without such *cough* accidents and I consider myself lucky to have learned through other people’s experience and not from mine. But here lies the catch. I can’t say I’m in either side.

    Why? I remember when I was little – 7 or 8 I think, I accidentally stumbled upon a documentary on abortion on TV (I was for some reason alone at that particular moment, and being curious I watched it – at that point I knew my parents wouldn’t let me watch it, so I only told them years later). It was pretty shocking, it was my first image of an abortion post-3 months and that image got stuck into my head. At that point I realized how fragile life is and perhaps unconsciously made the decision not to get into that situation. Never ever! I’m selfish too. I want to make myself a decent living and perhaps even marry before I’ll even think about pregnancy. That should be normal. I mean, I don’t necessarily consider myself as an example (well, for me, I narcisistically do, but that’s just human), but people shouldn’t even think about having babies before they’re prepared: in mind, social standing and possibility to give that child a good life. How many tragedies could have been prevented if people thought before rushing into *cough* baby-making activities?

    Coming from a country where abortion was illegal until 1989 (well, until some ten years ago you would also go to jail for being gay…), knowing the stories of these women who – sometimes – even lost their lives in underground, un-sanitary abortions, or the stories of women who could barely put a slice of bread on the table but had to accept a new life in their homes… There’s no wonder the orphanages are full and constantly renewing their numbers… Romanian women are still barely conscious (excluding some educated young women, maybe) about such things as contraception – they simply didn’t have mothers, sisters, grandmothers, friends to teach them. The subject is very much a tabu, even though magazines and TV shows promote the pleassant parts of sex (like everywhere else in the World), while leaving out a little detail that could save everybody a little trouble: responsibility. And not responsibility after you’ve found out you’re pregnant! Responsibility before even thinking of having unprotected sex. Thinking twice before rushing in with a boy (I’m talking about teenage girls) that may or may not take responsibility if things go awry…

    And then, there is the question of rape. I know about myself, that if I were in that situation (God forbid, again!), I wouldn’t want a constant reminder of that awful moment. I’d probably hate that child so much that I’d make my and his/her life a living hell. Well, I’m selling the skin of the bear from the forest, so I’d better not get there. In any case, women have gained the right to hate the men who harass, assault, rape or abuse them. By hate I mean acknowledging your own value and power and standing against anybody telling you otherwise.

    I was looking at these girls, these children… How easily you can manipulate them! How easily you can destroy their future! I’ve always hated any kind of aggressive propaganda. And that is what these pro-life organizations are doing. They don’t represent God, they don’t even represent man (pun intended), they represent their own narrow-minded bubbles. They have the same behavior inquisitors had back in the day. They have the same behavior as any rapacious sect members have when (s)he’s out and about forcibly feeding anybody coming their way with their porkies. They’re so pro-life they wouldn’t hesitate to lynch the gynecologist and everybody around (involved or not with the clinic) from across the street, given the chance.

    That’s why I’m sorry to say I’m a bit afraid of sects and para-religious organizations that think they have the law of man and God in their hands. They don’t do anything else but harass people who would have never bothered them (I mean, who opened the second “clinic”?), would have gone their own way, doing their own thing as the human rights of any democratic country dictate. Who is aggressive here? These people can’t but annoy and scare me. I only have one question: Who can make decisions for my personal affairs that happen inside my private space? What right does anybody else but me have in deciding what I do with my body? Of course, not everybody agrees with everybody, but disagreeing with my choice – does that give you the right to harass me? Is there a reason why we’re stormed with pro-life articles, pictures, manifestations and the kind – doesn’t it remind you of those annoying door-to-door or telephon sails-people who nag you about buying the new nuclear pillow that cures any existing disease and they nag you, they nag you, they nag you until you say “The hell with it!”? Wouldn’t sex education (and better education in general) and teaching responsibility to our youth be more effective (and cheap!) than all the stunts they’re pulling to harass us?

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  • Hare Krishna: Textures

    This video is basically a collage of different pictures I’ve taken a few weeks ago during an Indian festival in Trafalgar Square, London UK. I was fascinated by the sea of colours and the blend between sari and traditional Indian textures with modern-Western materials and shapes. I have an obsession for taking pictures of feet – it’s not a fetish, it’s more like a way of cutting an image (with its story) to the slightest detail (the feet) which still holds a meaning and can tell much more than the whole picture. It also leaves room to imagination!

    Enjoy … and Hare Krishna!

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  • China banned time travel movies

    Yes, China banned time travel movies. Why would they do that? Perhaps the Terminator is not only fiction and they fear the proliferation of time travel? They’re afraid Marty McFly will mess up their future?

    All in all, I think they’re afraid that glorifying an ancient land called Tang, Ming, Han, etc. would somehow destroy the – good? – image The People’s Republic of China has. What will they ban next? Historical movies?

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  • Freedom

    What is freedom? Where does freedom end?

    How free am I to do what I want? Is it that society restricts me?

    What is your definition of freedom?

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  • Get Off My Lawn!

    Gran Torino (film)
    Image via Wikipedia

     

     

    “Our temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or we boil at different degrees. One man is brought to the boiling point by the excitement of conversation in the parlor. The waters, of course, are not very deep.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eloquence[1])
    What happens when two different forces meet? Do they blend, or do they form a cyclone? Is racism a one-sided blade? When can a person be catalogued as a racist? Are there any grey nuances in the debate about nation(alism) and globalization? Can humour be connected with racism? Where exactly do nations clash? Where do they converge? 

    Gran Torino is one of those movies which promote a moral lesson hidden in a story of gangsta wars and western-style violence, a movie that fits like a glove to Clint Eastwood’s style and preferences. The story is about a Korean War veteran, Kowalski, who mingles in the Hmong minority (which becomes a majority in a neighbourhood that has been un-whitened, with Kowalski as a distant memory of what the neighbourhood was decades ago). He befriends a next-door boy, called Thao, and becomes his mentor and master in manning up. The story is basically centred on war: the war against oneself (Kowalski and Korea), the war against the other (all the ethnic groups against each other) and the war against war (gangs versus law abiding citizens who would like to have a future for their children).

    According to George Ritzer, such societies as the Hmong, hybrids themselves, are being Americanized not through grobal[3] means, but combining the need to blend in (and therefore to survive in a new, different place) and the ever-growing influence that American culture has all around the world. That is, which he defines as “the propagation of American Ideas, customs, social patterns, industry, and capital around the world.” (85). This process is much more powerful than its competitors (Japanization – which is nevertheless incredibly influential worldwide!) and its contact with the native (in this context the immigrant) leads to birth of “hybrid forms” (85).

    These hybrids are of many origins and colours, they meet on common ground (America), speak a common language (mostly gangster slang) and become more American than their actual DNA identity. In other words, these immigrants have adapted and were consequently Americanized within America[4], but nevertheless Americanized, some even before arriving in the Promised Land (Sue tells Kowalski the Hmong were brought in by the Lutherans after being persecuted as traitors[5]):
    Moreover, the notion of Americanization is tied to a particular nation – the United States – but it has a differential impact on many specific nations. It can be subsumed under the heading of grobalization because it envisions a growth in American influence in all realms throughout the world. (85)Throughout the movie, Kowalski uses a wide variety of stereotypical racist terms ranging from “zipperhead[7] and generalist slurs to calling the priest a “an overeducated 27-year-old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life” (Eastwood, 2008).

    Even though Kowalski seems to be open about his racist views, he is angered more when meeting worthless creatures (especially men) who cannot defend themselves or hide their nothingness behind a wall of violence. The joke he tells the others in the bar – “Oh, I’ve got one. A Mexican, a Jew, and a colored guy go into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “Get the f*k out of here.” (Eastwood, 2008) is indeed a sign of him (and his friends) not accepting outsiders in their world. Nevertheless, this could also be a so called empty expression[8], it probably does not mean that if a stranger of different race would enter the bar, he or she would be immediately lynched by the white majority.

    In other words, even though at surface the old widower would seem an extreme version of Scrooge combined with patriotic-white-racist-bitterness of a veteran who gloriously “shot men, stabbed them with bayonets, chopped up 17 year olds with shovels.”(Eastwood, 2008) is nothing but mask. Inside, he proves to be a broken man, haunted by the atrocities he has committed and cannot forgive himself until the boy next door fails in stealing his precious vintage (American) vehicle. What some would interpret as malicious is nothing other than a subtle intelligent humour: he plays with words[9], and here lies Eastwood’s genius.

    Even more so, a xenophobic narrow-minded bigot would not have even stepped inside a non-white’s pagan house! And Kowalski did just that: he not only visited and enjoyed their cuisine (and actually smiled amongst the “zipperheads,” unlike the way he reacted to his family during the funeral and subsequent reception) and learned their ways from Su and not the other way around (as expected from his exterior image-display):
    Sue Lor: All the people in this house are very traditional. Number one: never touch a Hmong person on the head. Not even a child. The Hmong people believe that the soul resides on the head, so don’t do that.
    Walt Kowalski: Well… Sounds dumb, but fine.
    Sue Lor: Yeah, and a lot of Hmong people consider looking someone in the eye to be very rude! That’s why they look away when you look at them.
    Walt Kowalski: Yeah. Anything else?
    Sue Lor: Yeah… some Hmong people tend to smile or grin, when they’re yelled at. It’s a cultural thing, it expresses embarrassment or insecurity. It’s not that they’re laughing at you or anything.
    Walt Kowalski: Right, you people are nuts. (Eastwood, 2008)As the situation progressively worsens, the only creature with which Kowalski is nice to is his dog, Daisy and the Gran Torino, his most beloved car. A more or less silent character, always following her her master, she will eventually end up living with the next-door “Hmong broads” (Eastwood, 2008). Interestingly enough, these neighbours and the dog are the only ones who are heartbroken when Kowalski is killed. His white-polak sons and their families never understood him and had no emotional connection whatsoever with him, while total (racial) strangers regret his passing the most, and as a result, in his will, he does not leave his Gran Torino to his granddaughter (who thought it was as hers), but he specifically gives to his friend.

    Racial and gender differences are not as one would expect in a diasporic traditional community (like Indian or Arab minorities): women are not kept at home to cook and procreate. As Sue tells Kowalski, “Hmong girls over here fit in better. The girls go to college and the boys go to jail.” (Eastwood, 2008) Therefore, unlike closed small-societies forcefully holding their ways, the Hmong are completely integrated in the gang-wars system, alongside the Hispanic and the African-Americans. Thao is expected to become a man by entering the local Hmong gang, and nobody other than Kowalski, in the pure Western-cowboy-style bildungsroman style, teaches him a lesson not only about what being a man means, as Thao learns towards the end, the lesson was also a deep, moral one. Kowalski ended up being the father Sue and Thao never had.

    One cannot talk of a nation without at least mapping it in an international context as Ulrich Beck demonstrates in reference to the Hmong. As other borderless nations, their sovereignty is the first thing to be questioned:
    Nations only exist in the plural. Internationality makes nationality possible. The field formed by the two concepts – nationality and internationality forms an exclusive, total unity. The national-international exclusionary order is opposed to the conceptual order transnational and cosmopolitan. […] Among innumerable examples are the Hmong, who endeavour to forge and preserve their transnational unity across many countries in the world. (62-3)The movie is not necessarily an overt endeavour to fight racism or gangs per se, but it goes beyond, it reflects what we are afraid most: ourselves. As Kowalski states himself, it is not what he was ordered to do during the war that he so much regrets, but it is what he was not ordered to do. There is something, a monster, inside all of us, a monster which we are so afraid of that we cannot fight it. Instead, we turn against the closest victim: the Other, the Different. Ironically the Other has the same fear. Therefore we get involved in a blind and deaf war against windmills, a circle which cannot be broken…

    Works Cited
    Gran Torino. dir. Eastwood, Clint. DVD. Warner Bros., 2008. rinner,. Online posting. 27 June 2009. Urban Dictionary. 11 May 2010 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zipperhead.
    Ritzer, George. Globalisation. The Globalization of Nothing. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2004. 71-116
    Beck, Ulrich. in Held, D. and McGrew, Anthony (eds.) The Global Transformation Reader Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000. 17-71

    [1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909). Vol. 7 Society and Solitude. Chapter:ELOQUENCE. Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/86/104478 on 2010-05-11
    [2] Spreading of (American) ways globally, namely what Ritzer calls McDonaldization and Americanization.
    [3] Similar to globalization, but the global power (enterprise, company) does not impose its policies and habits per se, but it adapts it to the local customs in order to make its products comprehensible for the natives.
    [4] What is striking about globalization, especially with the USA as point of origin, is that the USA theoretically is the land of freedom and democracy, but practically it does almost nothing to protect the immigrant’s identity. As the external policies, inside the borders you must become American, or otherwise vanish from public existence. This is mainly due to ignorance of the Outside (and the Other) and a consequence of the idea that the US is not only the centre of the world, but it is the world.
    [5] The Hmong minority helped the Americans in Vietnam, but, after the US Army’s withdrawal, they were left alone and unprotected against the Communist forces.
    [6] Rude way of calling a person of East Asian descent, most likely coined by US soldiers during the Korean War. In the Urban Dictionary, an open-source Wiki (users can add/edit content) Dictionary where contemporary language is being defined by those who actually use this kind of terminology, one of the users, called rinner, defines zipperhead in direct connection with Gran Torino, as“Clint Eastwood’s favorite racial slur in Gran Torino”. (2)
    [7] Interestingly enough, he does not limit his strong linguistic blows to the now dominant minorities: he talks the same way with his fellow Caucasian companions (his conversations with the Italian barber are a vivid proof of this fact). Such insults are a vital component of the “manning up” process which he passes on to Thao towards the end of his life.
    [8] As reference to Mandarin Chinese grammar: words in Mandarin can be full (with meaning outside the sentence and context) and empty (words that only have meaning within the sentence and have the role of grammatical markers, also called particles they are used to differentiate time, syntactic function etc.). In the context of this essay, Kowalski’s empty joke is just a rhetorical device to stir up the atmosphere when the Padre comes to the bar trying to convince him to go to confession.
    [9] From calling Su Dragon Lady, to affectionately nickname Thao as Toad or Yuan as Yum Yum. It is a way of naming the Other distorting the original as to giving it a new identity shared only by yourself and that particular person, which is no insult whatsoever.
    ‘Till the next time, may the Schwartz be with y’all!

    Here’s a trailer of the movie:

     

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